I wanted to build a better search for my blog so I started to search for resources that would help me do that. Along the way I tested several different plugins and options. Let me show you how I created a better search for WordPress.

The best way I have found to create a better WordPress search is simply by using a plugin. I have used Search Everything for a long time but have recently realized that it’s not useful at all. All it really does is highlight the term you are searching for within the results page. But it doesn’t really create a better search page.

While trying to find options on how to create better searches I came across an old article from Joost de Valk about making a better WordPress search. The article itself was extremely helpful and I am going to follow and mention lots of the points he makes there. What he uses on his blog supposedly is the Search Reloaded plugin. When I tried to download the plugin it made me log in as a member. Thinking that I could easily sign up and get the plugin I indeed signed up. Still I couldn’t download the plugin because it seems to be part of a product the site is selling.

WordPress Default Search Problem

The huge problem that WordPress’ default search has is that it lists articles based on date and not on relevance. That means it lists the most recent articles that include the term you are searching for. So even when an article only mentions that keyword once will WordPress go back and show it in the search results.

In this article we want to create a search that shows relevant results.

More Relevant Search Results

That’s why I started to search for alternatives and came upon Search Unleashed. I did install Search Unleashed once before but I didn’t know how to use it right because by default it made the search look terrible.

The great thing about the plugin is that it indeed returns better search results as long as you know how to use it. If you rather want to rely on a premium plugin to deliver better results then take a look at the Relevant Search plugin which is the one that’s used on all of the Tut+ websites. It’s supposed to be really good but it’s not free.

I drifted off there, let’s go back to our plugin setup. Basically Search Unleashed let’s you create your own search engine by giving you the option of deciding on priorities.
That means that if you think in order to get relevant results the keyword should be contained in the page title then you should assign this page title the highest priority, in my case I chose 1. You then go ahead and click on the things that you think are relevant too, such as category, content, page excerpt, tags etc. and decide on a priority.

My priority settings for Search Unleashed, click to enlarge the image.

You can actually see how I have configured my search and the priorities I assigned to each type. For me this combination works best but you can change it however you want too. For example if you heavily use tags then this might be a good option to include. Once you have set the priorities be sure to save the settings.

Before any search results will be shown through your WordPress search you need to go to the Search Unleashed page (Tools -> Search Unleashed) and re-index your site. This might take a few moments. Once this is done search your blog using the new search.

Before you use it I recommend to change a few settings in order to make the search look nicer because for some reason the default Search Unleashed layout makes the search results look extremely ugly.
Let’s just fix this. Go to the Search Unleashed -> Options page and change the Search Engine to MySQL Fulltext. If you don’t change this you will still be stuck with the default WordPress engine. In order to also get rid of the ugly search excerpts uncheck both of these boxes:

• Change page title on search results to reflect the search condition
• Highlight searches on search page or default to the_excerpt

The last thing I would recommend is to scroll further down the page and to change the color of Highlight Color #1 to #FEFFBF because that way it’s not as bright.

WordPress Search Excerpts

The search results are still not looking the way they should look. To change this we are going to install the Search Excerpt plugin. Once installed it will show nicer excerpts automatically.

Style the Search Results

We now want to highlight the keyword within the heading of each search excerpt in order to make it stand out. To do that edit your search.php file (Appearance -> Editor -> search.php). Find the code which says the_title(); and change it to echo $title;. Then above it include the following code:

<?php
	$title 	= get_the_title();
	$keys= explode(" ",$s);
	$title 	= preg_replace('/('.implode('|', $keys) .')/iu',
		'<strong>\0</strong>',
		$title);
?>

Now we need to add some CSS styling to the heading (Appearance -> Editor -> style.css):

strong.search-excerpt { background: #FEFFBF; }

Simply add it to your style.css file and save it. Another step is to show the visitors also what they are searching for. This seems dumb but is actually very helpful.

Let’s go ahead and find this code

<h2>Search Results</h2>

and modify it to:

<h2>Search Results for "<em><?php the_search_query(); ?></em>"</h2>

That just makes the search page look nicer. Do the same thing with the “no posts found” line below the endwhile; code.

Show the Number of Results

Just before publishing this article I stumbled across an article from Michael on creating better search pages. In it he mentions to also show the number of results which is what we are going to add to the search page. Just add this code before the one above.

<?php $allsearch = &new WP_Query("s=$s&showposts=-1"); 
 $count = $allsearch->post_count;
wp_reset_query(); ?>

Then change the headline code above to:

<h2>Search results "<em><?php the_search_query(); ?></em>" -
<?php echo $count; ?> Articles</h2>

Now your visitors will also see how many relevant pages were found.

Refining the Search Result Page

To refine searches Joost de Valk suggests to put another search box below your excerpts which is a great idea. Just add this code after the endwhile; in the search.php file:

<h3>Didn't find what you were looking for? Refine your search!</h3>
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/searchform.php'); ?>

Once you have done that you could also add a number of related searches in order to make it easier for the visitor to find what he is looking for. In order to do this you need to have the Search Suggest plugin installed. Simply add this code below the one I mentioned above:

<?php related_searches(); ?>

This will add related searches below the search form.

Change the Pagination

Another step I suggest to do is to change the pagination links (which are usually after the endwhile; in the search.php file) that are usually below the search results. My normal pagination links are Older Entries and Previous Entries which I changed to Previous Page and Next Page to make the page look nicer.

Change the Search Form Value

One additional step I recommend to do is to change the default search form value. Google, for example, always keeps the keyword you have searched for in their search box and that’s what we are going to do too. Edit the searchform.php file and find the value=” code within the HTML <input> tag. Simply change it to:

value="<?php the_search_query(); ?>"

Now whenever you search for something the keyword will be put in the box.

Catch Misspelled Words

One very effective aspect Joost mentioned in his article is a way of catching typos. Search Suggest also suggests keywords when someone misspelled something. In order to make use of this add the following line below the “no matches” or “no posts found” code:

<?php spell_suggest(); ?>

Track Search Behaviour

In order to also track what is happening on your search page you can do one of several things. Google Analytics offers an easy solution to tracking site search (read it here) and that’s the method I prefer. If you do so then you will be able to find the search reports under Content -> Site Search in your Analytics dashboard.

Search meter is a WordPress plugin you can install which will show you what people are searching for on your blog and how many of those searches were unsuccessful. If you are more comfortable with that I would recommend to stick to that.

If you want to see the results of this post then simply search my blog using the search in the sidebar.

What do you think? Have you already tried to change the default WordPress search?

How to Create a Better WordPress Search is a post from And Break

Here is the introduction to make you more eager to read it:

WordPress became very popular with the ever growing number of blogs. People started creating all sorts of guides and tutorials for WordPress itself. But little has been talked about security, even though it is such an important topic. For that reason I wanted to step forward and create a comprehensive WordPress security guide.
Really, there is no reason not to follow along this guide and make your blog more secure. Think of how much it would cost you if your blog were to be hacked?

I hope you like the WordPress security article.

Tell me what you think of it! Do you like it? Do you think such in depth articles are valuable or just a waste of time?

WordPress Security: Another Expert Article is a post from And Break

Every blogger is talking about WordPress. Every blogger would recommend it to you. But what is it? What does it do? Should you use it? I hope you find answers to these questions in this article.

WordPress in General

WordPress is a system that helps you manage the content you present on your web site. Because of that it is also referred to as a Content Management System or CMS.

A Content Management System lets you create, manage, edit and publish content in a organized manner. It does this in a straight forward way. Especially in WordPress you can control every aspect of the web site through a nice control panel.

Another aspect that makes it so great, is that it’s free. You don’t have to pay anything.

Who Should Use WordPress?

If you are sick of having to manage all your HTML files yourself or you do not know a lot about the technical side of a web site, then WordPress will be very useful to you.

It is great for people who do not like doing technical stuff. On the other hand it is also good for web developers. They can create plugins to extend WordPress’ default functionality to suit their needs.

Ultimately WordPress is useful for everyone.

Requirements

WordPress itself does have some technical requirements. If you want to know whether WordPress could be installed on your web server than just ask your web host about the following aspects:

• PHP 4.3 or greater
• MYSQL 4.0 or greater
• The mod_rewrite Apache module

Most web hosting companies meet these requirements but it cannot hurt to ask before signing up for a hosting service.

Blogging with WordPress

WordPress is mostly used for blogs these days. The reason being that it was originally developed for this task.

Therefore blogging with WordPress is extremely easy once you get the hang of it. There is not a whole lot you can do wrong. If you don’t want to end up destroying your blog while trying a few things out then I would recommend installing WordPress offline.

Other WordPress Uses

BuddyPress is an extension of WordPress. All it does is to add specific plugins to your WordPress blog. These plugins serve to make your web site more social through adding functions such as private messaging.

WordPress is also used as an e-Commerce site. Again there are several plugins that help you in creating a e-Commerce web site.

WordPress Plugins

WordPress for its part is also very flexible. This flexibility comes in the form of plugins.

Everyone is allowed to create plugins. If you have a great plugin idea then go ahead and create it. In order to do that though your plugin needs to fulfill certain requirements. Therefore if you are seriously interested in developing plugins you should visit WordPress’ knowledge base.

All new WordPress plugins will be listed in the Plugin Directory.

How to Style Your Blog Differently

WordPress themes are a way to style your blog differently. These themes are basic PHP files containing some special WordPress modifiers. Therefore WordPress themes look  almost the same as normal PHP web pages.

Themes are made up of multiple pages, some of which are necessary. Every theme should at least include these files:

style.css
header.php
index.php
footer.php
sidebar.php
comments.php


Today there are so many themes available for WordPress it is hard to know where to start with. I personally recommend two web sites:

• Woothemes – This web sites offers mostly WordPress themes you have to purchase, but they also have some free themes available.
• DailyBlogTips – This is a blog which offers many free WordPress themes.

Depending on your needs I recommend to go to either one of the web sites. However if you are not so much into the technical side of a blog then I recommend purchasing themes from Woothemes. Their advantage is that everything is already built-in and you can change stuff without the need of editing source code.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

Everyone doing research about WordPress will eventually come to ask himself whether there is a difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

Yes, there is a small but significant difference between these two web sites. WordPress.org offers the free content management system I’ve been talking about. On the other hand WordPress.com is a web site that offers free blogs that use WordPress.org as the blog management system.

In a simple sentence: WordPress.org  is the software WordPress.com uses to provide free blogs for visitors.

Has this article helped you in understanding WordPress better? Was it of any use?

What is WordPress? is a post from And Break

Days after days I tried to play around with my WordPress theme but I always had to log into my WordPress blog. The problem was that it was not only slow to always change code in the Editor section, but it always changed the appearance of my blog.

This eventually led me to find a way to use WordPress offline. Using it offline has a lot of advantages:

• you do not use up your bandwidth
• it is a lot faster
• it just changes your local theme and does not change the look of your online blog

There is just one problem with installing WordPress offline. You usually need a server to run WordPress as it uses PHP, which is a programming language that is used on most web servers.

After trying several things out I became aware of XAMPP which solves the issue mentioned above.

What Is XAMPP?

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use – just download, extract and start.

XAMPP is really useful as it packages all the necessary files in one distribution and makes the installation very simple.

Now let’s look at the steps you need to take in order to get your offline WordPress blog working.

Download XAMPP

Go and visit Apache Friends to download XAMPP. There are several different downloads depending on your platform.

Installation

After having downloaded XAMPP, double click on the file (in Windows). This should open up a new Window and start the installation.

Default installation start page in Windows

Click Next to go to the next page. There you should be able to choose to which location you want to install XAMPP. If want to change the default location then click on Browse…

Choose the directory to which you want to install XAMPP

Again choose the Next button to get to the next page. Here you are prompted with options such as whether to add an icon to your desktop or not. Select the options you like and then click on Install.

Afterwards your computer should start to install XAMPP. When it’s done just click on Finish to close the installation.

XAMPP should now be installed so let’s take a look at making it ready for WordPress.

Running XAMPP

If you chose to add an icon to your Desktop then just double click on it, otherwise go to Programs -> Apache Friends -> XAMPP -> XAMPP Control Panel. You should now see a control panel similar to the one below.

XAMPP control panel

Click on the two Start buttons next to Apache and MySql to start both of these servers. Now open up a browser after the servers are started. Type in the address: http://localhost/. You should now see a different control panel for XAMPP.

XAMPP default browser page

XAMPP Security

In order to make XAMPP more secure go to http://localhost/security/xamppsecurity.php . There you can change XAMPP’s default passwords.

Change the default passwords

It is very important to change the default passwords!

Setting Up the Database

The next step to take is to go back to the XAMPP browser panel (http://localhost/). In the navigation bar search for phpMyAdmin and click on it. A page similar to the one below should appear.

phpMyAdmin login page: Enter your username and password

Add your user name and password into the boxes and click on Go.

After logging in, you have to create a new database. Look at the MySQL localhost section at which there should be section for you to create a new database. Let’s call the new database wordpress. Instead of the default MySQL connection collation choose utf8_unicode_ci (all the way at the bottom), then hit Create.

Create a WordPress database

We now have created our WordPress database. All we now need to do is to download WordPress.

Install WordPress

After downloading WordPress go to the directory where you have installed XAMPP. Then click on the htdocs folder to switch to it. You now have to extract all the WordPress files into a subdirectory of htdocs. You can do this by creating a subdirectory (of htdocs) named wordpress. If you choose to use a different  subdirectory then you must adjust the blog path (http://localhost/wordpress/) at the end of the tutorial according to it.

Go to the wordpress directory and open up wp-config-sample.php in a text editor (Notepad will do just fine). You only need to change three lines, i.e. DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD.

Change the default DB_NAME to wordpress, the database which we have created earlier. Then enter your phpMyAdmin username into DB_USER (the default is root) and also your password into DB_PASSWORD.

Change the default WordPress config settings

You don’t need to change DB_HOST since it is already set to the right host, i.e. localhost. Now you need to save the file as wp-config.php and you should be done setting up.

Before you can start though you probably need to go to http://localhost/wordpress/ (your blog address) and follow the default WordPress instructions to complete the WordPress installation.

You should then be able to visit your blog at http://localhost/wordpress/ and your Administration panel  at http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/ .

Installing WordPress Offline is a post from And Break

There are lots and lots of plug-ins out there that let you change WordPress according to your wishes. However only few people use the options that are available with WordPress.

In this article I will show you 6 optimization tips that you can directly apply in your WordPress dashboard.

1. Enable WordPress to Automatically Correct Invalidly Nested XHTML: I always wondered why this is not activated by default. I highly recommend to activate it because if you do not, your HTML may be invalid. This actually happened to me a lot. To correct this go to Settings -> Writing and then enable WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically
2. Automatically Close Comments After a Certain Period of Time: People even created plug-ins to do exactly that even though you can just enable it in the dashboard. To close comments after a certain period of time go to Settings -> Discussion and then click on the box that says Automatically close comments on articles older than. The last step is the adjust the number of days you want to wait before closing comments.
3. Instead of Using a Backup Plug-in, Just Export Your Content: Most people use a backup plug-in for their blogs but you can also just export your content. Of course it is not as nice as using a plug-in but you can still use it under Tools -> Export to create a backup of your blog.
4. Enable Threaded Comments: This is only useful if your WordPress theme also supports it, otherwise it does not make sense. To active this feature go to Settings -> Discussion and then click on the box saying Enable threaded comments.
5. Changing the Permalink Structure: A lot of people have already mentioned this. It is important to change your permalink structure in WordPress. Under Settings -> Permalinks you can change the settings. The least what you should do is to change from the default maybe to the Month and Name section. You can also create your own version by choosing the Custom Structure box.
6. Breaking Up Comments onto Multiple Pages: Breaking up comments makes sense if you have a web site that gets a lot of comments. Go to Settings -> Discussion and active the feature Break comments into pages …

What is strange about this whole thing is that people actually developed plug-ins that do the very same thing that is available in the WordPress settings section.

In WordPress Optimization Tips is a post from And Break

Not only will the new link tag help in fighting duplicate content but it will also probably increase your web site’s link popularity. Why is that? Let’s take a look at an example.

Suppose most visitors visit your web site via http://yourwebsite.com/ . Others might also visit your blog via http://www.yourwebsite.com/ . Until today search engines might have seen these addresses as two different sites and thus your link popularity might have been split into half.

The new link tag Google, Yahoo, and Live.com introduced will help fight exactly these problems. Let’s look at another example to make it even clearer. Say you have a website with lots of products on it and the link to the product page looks like this one:

http://yourwebsite.com/product.php

Now when you look at fish as a product its URL might be the following one:

http://yourwebsite.com/product.php?item=fish

As you look around your page and search through the different categories you find a link back to your fish products.

http://yourwebsite.com/product.php?item=fish&id=101&type=food

This link refers you to the exact same page but through a different URL. Now to avoid this being taken as duplicate content you could just add the link tag to your page header:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://yourwebsite.com/product.php?item=fish" />

This simply specifies your preferred version and will keep search engines from mistaken your two URLs referring to the same content as duplicate content.

If you want to add this link tag to every page Joost from Yoast.com has already created a plug in that does exactly that.

Avoiding Duplicate Content: New Link Tag is a post from And Break

Actually setting up a blog requires a maximum of 10 minutes. And for the patience part, well depending on your goal you do need a lot of patience or not any at all. To not waste any time I will now walk you through the process of creating a WordPress.com blog.

What is a WordPress.com Blog?

Well, first of all WordPress.com is a special blogging platform. The platform is based on the WordPress content management system. A content management system basically organizes your blog content and makes it easy to write new articles. That is all you need to know for now.

How Do I Create a WordPress.com Blog?

The process of setting up a blog on WordPress.com is really easy. To get started visit the WordPress.com web site.

Usually on the site there is a big button saying Sign Up Now. Just click the button and it will lead you to a knew page.

User name

On the page you have to fill out the form. In the first box you have to fill in the username you want to use to log in, into your WordPress.com blog.

In the second and third box just add the password you want to use. The password needs to be strong meaning that you should not only use lower case characters but also upper case ones, numbers and symbols.

Email Address

In the last box you need to enter a valid email address through which WordPress will be able to contact you. Last but not least you have to click on the check box about the legal terms if you agree to them.

You do not have to change the last option as you want to get a blog anyway, so just keep the default. Then click on Next. Again you will be lead to a new page.

Blog Domain

First of all you have to choose your blog domain. The blog domain is the address through which you will be able to visit your blog. You have to choose it carefully because there is no way you can change it at a later point in time.

Tip: It is often useful to choose a blog domain name that is related to your content and easy to memorize, e.g. if you are writing about traveling in Europe, traveling-through-europe.wordpress.com might be a good choice. The problem with domain names is that most of the time the best domain names are already taken.

Blog Title

In the next box you have to fill in your blog title. The title is changeable at all times so you do not have to be as careful as with the blog domain. Just keep in mind that search engines pay a lot of attention to it so it is useful to add keywords that you want to rank for.

The next row covers what language you will primarily be blogging in. Change it to the language you want to write in, for most of us the default should be just fine.

After having chosen your language you just need to check whether you want your blog to appear in search engines. If you do not wish to be listed on the latter then just disable the check box.

Click on the Signup button and you are done. You have just created your very own WordPress.com blog!

Visit Your Blog

You will now be able to reach your blog under the domain name ([yourdomain].wordpress.com) you have chosen.

Go to Your Administration Panel

If you want to log in to your administration panel go to [yourdomain].wordpress.com/wp-admin . There you will need to enter your user name and the password you have chosen in the steps above.

I hope this article helped you in creating a blog and showed how easy it actually is to get one. If you have questions just leave a comment/contact me and I will do my best to help you.

How to Create a WordPress.com Blog is a post from And Break

WordPress 2.7 has totally new look. Many people helped through giving advice and in providing ideas for the new version. Because its developers took the time to actually listen to the people we now have a new fully customizable WordPress that is even more in line with the blogging spirit. Take a look at its features:

• new interface
• a lot faster
• drag and drop dashboard
• ability to install plugins with one click
• built-in automatic WordPress upgrade
• every screen customizable
• reply to comments from dashboard

These are several of the new features but there are a lot more.

I have actually been using version 2.7 to write this post and I must say I am very impressed. I think once you get to know it better you will be a lot more efficient.

You can download it here. It is really worth it!

WordPress 2.7 Released is a post from And Break

Because WordPress is by default not really fast there are several steps you can take to improve its performance. This post points out several essential articles about speeding up WordPress.

First of all, all the people that are interested in optimizing and playing around with WordPress should seriously consider visiting Yoast. Joost de Valk, the blog owner, writes in his blog about how to improve WordPress, new useful plugins and SEO. He created several useful posts that might give you more insight into optimizing your blog.

The first article you should consider reading from Yoast is about speeding and cleaning up WordPress. It is a great article with several tips on how to make WordPress faster. Take a look at it!

Also consider looking at How to Make Better use of WordPress Functions. This is another article from Yoast.com about WordPress hacks that might speed up WordPress.

Speeding up the administration section of WordPress is also important. I actually wrote this article myself. It should be pretty easy to follow along the steps explained in the article to make the admin section respond faster.

How to Speed Up WordPress is a post from And Break

Even though it is very popular few people know steps to make it work better. So how do you use WordPress more efficiently?

There is actually only one simple step you have to take to make WordPress both faster and more secure.

Add a New User with Editor privileges

Note: It does not have to be an editor account
This might not yet make sense to you but I am going to explain to you why it should.

Maybe you are one of the people who are constantly using WordPress by logging in as admin. I used to do that too but it does not make sense. Adding a new user with Editor rights and using this account makes much more sense. Just consider the following few points.

First of all using an account with lower privileges makes WordPress much more secure. Why is that? Because if someone were to take over your editor account he could not damage much. But think of the implications of someone hijacking your admin account! The intruder would have complete control over your blog. Because of these security issues it is much more advisable to use an account with lower privileges. By using a different account you could still login as administrator and administer your blog.

Another advantage of using an editor account is that it greatly reduces the load on the database. How could the use of an lower privileged account create less load? Well for starters the lower your rights on WordPress the fewer options you have in the administration section. Because as an editor you can only write posts, manage them and change comments WordPress does not have to put much load on the database. You will see yourself that using an account with few rights makes WordPress respond a lot faster.

I hope this makes sense to you. If it doesn’t just give it a try and see for yourself.

How to Make WordPress Faster and More Secure is a post from And Break