Better WP Search v1.1: A Small Plugin Refresh That Makes WordPress Search Feel Better

WordPress search is one of those features most site owners learn to live with, rather than build around.

It works, but it rarely feels intentional.

Better WP Search started as a lightweight way to fix two small but persistent annoyances I’ve run into across multiple WordPress sites over the years: messy search URLs and clunky UX when a search has only one obvious match.

This week I released Better WP Search v1.1, a modern refresh of the plugin with a cleaner codebase and improved compatibility with today’s WordPress.

What Better WP Search Does

The plugin focuses on two opinionated improvements:

• First, if a search only returns one result, it redirects directly to that post. This makes WordPress search behave more like a “go-to” box rather than a results page people have to click through.
• Second, it replaces the default WordPress search URL format:/?s=query…with the much cleaner:/search/query

It’s a small change, but it makes the user experience feel better immediately. Search URLs are easier to read, easier to share, and more consistent with what people expect from modern websites.

What’s New in v1.1

The big change in v1.1 isn’t flashy from the outside but it matters if you care about stability and maintainability.

The plugin code has been refactored into a cleaner structure that’s easier to maintain going forward. It’s also more defensive in how it triggers redirects to avoid unexpected behavior in contexts where redirects can cause problems (admin screens, feeds, REST, and similar edge cases).

In other words: it’s still the same plugin, but it’s now built in a way that I feel confident keeping updated over time.

Why I’m Still Maintaining Small Plugins

I think the WordPress ecosystem benefits from plugins that do one thing well.

Not every feature needs to become a full “suite.” Not every improvement needs an admin dashboard. Often, the right tool is the one that solves an annoyance quietly and consistently for years.

Better WP Search is intentionally simple. It’s a plugin you install, activate, and then forget about until you notice how much cleaner search feels.

What’s Next

Now that the plugin is modernized and confirmed compatible with recent WordPress versions, the next step is deciding whether to keep it minimalist or grow it into something more configurable.

A few possible future improvements include:

• a small settings page so site owners can toggle features without editing code.
• smarter single-result logic (for example, excluding certain post types).
• search improvements that go beyond URL formatting (relevance, weighting, etc.).

For now, v1.1 is a maintenance-focused release. The goal was reliability and compatibility first.

Get Better WP Search

If you run a WordPress site and want search to feel cleaner with no extra configuration, you can install Better WP Search from the WordPress plugin directory.

Thanks to everyone who still values lightweight plugins that improve WordPress without trying to replace it.