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Adam Greenwell

Best Practices for Lumenare Search

Follow these best practices to maximize your WordPress site's search functionality with Lumenare Search.

Current release: 2.1.00

Initial Setup Priorities

Phase 1: Essential (Do First)

0. Apply a Setup Preset

  • Impact: Gives you a sensible starting point for the kind of site you run
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 1 minute

Steps:

  1. Go to Settings → Lumenare Search → Setup
  2. Apply the recommended preset for Publisher, Commerce, Knowledge Base, Performance, or ASP Migration
  3. Review the changed settings before moving on

1. Build Your Search Index

  • Impact: Required for search to work
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 2-10 minutes (depending on site size)

Steps:

  1. Go to Settings → Lumenare Search → Index Management
  2. Click "Reindex All Content"
  3. Wait for completion
  4. Verify indexed post count matches your content

2. Configure Post Types

  • Impact: Controls what content is searchable
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 1 minute

Steps:

  1. Go to General Settings
  2. Select post types to include in search
  3. Consider excluding private/internal post types
  4. Save changes

3. Choose Match Mode

  • Impact: Determines search behavior
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 1 minute

Steps:

  1. Go to Search Quality Settings
  2. Choose Match ANY (OR) for broad results
  3. Or choose Match ALL (AND) for precision
  4. Test with your content type

Phase 2: Optimization (Do Soon)

1. Configure Stop Words

  • Impact: Improves relevance and performance
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 5 minutes

Steps:

  1. Add common words that don't add search value
  2. Start with: a, an, the, is, are, was, were
  3. Add language-specific stop words
  4. Reindex after adding stop words

2. Set Up Synonyms

  • Impact: Expands search coverage
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Time: 10-15 minutes

Steps:

  1. Identify equivalent terms in your content
  2. Group synonyms (one group per line, comma-separated)
  3. Example: "car, automobile, vehicle"
  4. Test searches to verify synonyms work

3. Enable Search Analytics

  • Impact: Understand user behavior
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 1 minute

Steps:

  1. Go to Analytics tab
  2. Enable Search Analytics
  3. Review data after a few days
  4. Use insights to improve content and configuration

Phase 3: Advanced (Do When Needed)

1. Tune Weights

  • Impact: Optimizes relevance ranking
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Time: 30+ minutes (with testing)

Steps:

  1. Review Weighting System documentation
  2. Test searches with current weights
  3. Adjust weights based on content type
  4. Reindex and test again
  5. Iterate until results are optimal

2. Configure Phrase Boosting

  • Impact: Boosts important content
  • Difficulty: Medium
  • Time: 15-20 minutes

Steps:

  1. Identify important phrases users search for
  2. Add phrases to phrase boost list
  3. Configure boost multiplier
  4. Test searches to verify boosting works

3. Enable Trending Ranking

  • Impact: Surfaces popular content
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Time: 2 minutes

Steps:

  1. Enable Dynamic Trending Ranking
  2. Configure boost strength
  3. Set minimum searches threshold
  4. Let it run for a few days to build trending data

Content-Specific Recommendations

Blog or News Site

Configuration:

  • Match Mode: Match ANY (OR)
  • Stop Words: Comprehensive list
  • Weights: Default (Title: 10, Excerpt: 5, Content: 1)
  • Fuzzy Matching: Enabled (threshold: 2)
  • Trending Ranking: Enabled
  • Search Intelligence: Review CTR opportunities before changing global weights

Why:

  • Broad searches work better for news/blogs
  • Stop words reduce noise
  • Default weights work well for article-style content
  • Fuzzy matching helps with typos
  • Trending surfaces popular topics

E-commerce or Product Catalog

Configuration:

  • Match Mode: Match ALL (AND) for precision
  • Stop Words: Basic list
  • Weights: Commerce preset or high title weight (8-10)
  • Category/Tag Weights: Increased (6-8)
  • Synonyms: Product variations
  • Phrase Boosting: Product names

Why:

  • Precision mode finds exact products
  • Higher title weight prioritizes product names
  • Category weights help with product organization
  • Synonyms handle product variations
  • Phrase boosting ensures product names rank high

Documentation or Knowledge Base

Configuration:

  • Match Mode: Match ANY (OR)
  • Stop Words: Comprehensive list
  • Weights: Balanced/content-rich (Title: 8-10, Excerpt: 5, Content: 2-3)
  • Fuzzy Matching: Enabled (threshold: 2-3)
  • Synonyms: Technical terms
  • Phrase Boosting: Important concepts
  • Document Indexing: Enable only if uploaded files need to be searchable

Why:

  • Broad searches help users find related topics
  • Higher content weight for detailed docs
  • Fuzzy matching helps with technical term typos
  • Synonyms expand technical terminology
  • Phrase boosting surfaces key concepts

Portfolio or Showcase Site

Configuration:

  • Match Mode: Match ANY (OR)
  • Stop Words: Basic list
  • Weights: Higher title/excerpt weights
  • Category/Tag Weights: Increased
  • Fuzzy Matching: Enabled (threshold: 1-2)

Why:

  • Broad searches help discovery
  • Title/excerpt weights prioritize project names
  • Category weights help with filtering
  • Lower fuzzy threshold for precision

Weight Tuning Strategy

When to Increase Title Weight

  • Titles are very descriptive
  • Titles accurately represent content
  • You have SEO-optimized titles
  • Title matches should dominate results

Recommended: 8-10 (default: 10)

When to Increase Excerpt Weight

  • Excerpts are well-written summaries
  • Excerpts accurately represent content
  • You want excerpt matches more important than content

Recommended: 4-7 (default: 5)

When to Increase Content Weight

  • Content is keyword-rich
  • You have long-form, well-structured content
  • Content matches should have more influence

Recommended: 2-3 (default: 1)

When to Increase Taxonomy Weights

  • Categories/tags are well-organized
  • Taxonomy organization is crucial for finding content
  • You want taxonomy matches to boost results significantly

Recommended: Category 6-10, Tags 4-6 (default: Category 5, Tags 3)

When to Use Search Intelligence Instead

  • A single exact query has the right result, but users skip it
  • A zero-result query suggests a real synonym your audience uses
  • Imported Ajax Search Pro history needs to be separated from native Lumenare behavior
  • You want to prove whether a promotion or synonym improved CTR or reduced zero-results before changing site-wide weights

Stop Words Strategy

Essential Stop Words (Start Here)

a
an
the
is
are
was
were
be
been
being
have
has
had
do
does
did
will
would
should
could

Common English Stop Words (Add If Needed)

and
or
but
if
then
else
when
where
what
who
which
how
why
this
that
these
those

Language-Specific

Add stop words specific to your content's language. For multilingual sites, you may need separate configurations.

Synonyms Strategy

Product Variations

Example:

laptop, notebook, computer
phone, smartphone, mobile
car, automobile, vehicle

Technical Terms

Example:

SEO, search engine optimization
API, application programming interface
CMS, content management system

Common Variations

Example:

email, e-mail
website, web site, site
online, on-line

Phrase Boosting Strategy

Important Product Names

Add exact product names users search for:

WordPress Security Plugin
Best Practices Guide
Getting Started Tutorial

Brand Names

Add brand names and important terms:

Lumenare Search
Guard Dog
WordPress

Key Concepts

Add important concepts in your content:

WordPress security
Search optimization
Content strategy

Performance Optimization

For Large Sites (1000+ Posts)

  1. Limit Post Types: Only index what users need to search
  2. Comprehensive Stop Words: Reduces index size
  3. Batch Indexing: Let it complete, don't interrupt
  4. Partial Reindex: Use for updates instead of full reindex
  5. Reduce Dropdown Results: Lower count for faster queries
  6. Automatic Reindexing: Schedule new-content catch-up runs through WP-Cron
  7. Document Indexing Discipline: Enable only useful MIME types and cache extracted text

For High-Traffic Sites

  1. Enable Caching: Works with caching plugins
  2. Optimize Database: Regular database optimization
  3. Monitor Performance: Check query times
  4. Limit Fuzzy Matching: More resource-intensive
  5. Review Analytics: Identify slow queries
  6. Review Search ROI: Keep click boosts and promotions grounded in measured improvement

Learn more about Performance Optimization →

Security Best Practices

Enable Security Filtering

  1. Keep security filtering enabled (default)
  2. Review security logs periodically
  3. Adjust blocked patterns if needed
  4. Don't disable unless necessary

Regular Maintenance

  1. Review Analytics: Check for suspicious queries
  2. Update Plugin: Keep plugin updated
  3. Monitor Logs: Review security logs
  4. Test Search: Regularly test search functionality

Testing Your Configuration

Test Checklist

  • Basic search works
  • Live dropdown appears
  • Results are relevant
  • Match mode works correctly
  • Stop words exclude properly
  • Synonyms expand searches
  • Fuzzy matching handles typos
  • Phrase boosting works
  • Analytics tracking data
  • Performance is acceptable

Testing Process

  1. Test with Real Queries: Use actual user searches
  2. Test Edge Cases: Empty searches, special characters, long queries
  3. Test Different Content Types: Posts, pages, custom post types
  4. Test on Different Devices: Desktop, mobile, tablet
  5. Monitor Analytics: Review search patterns

Common Mistakes to Avoid

❌ Don't Skip Indexing

Always build your index after installation. Search won't work properly without it.

❌ Don't Ignore Stop Words

Stop words significantly improve relevance. Don't skip this step.

❌ Don't Change Weights Without Testing

Weight changes require reindexing. Test thoroughly after changes.

❌ Don't Over-Configure Initially

Start with defaults, then optimize based on actual usage and analytics.

❌ Don't Forget to Reindex

After changing stop words, weights, or post types, always reindex.

❌ Don't Disable Security Filtering

Keep security features enabled unless you have a specific reason to disable them.

Maintenance Schedule

Daily

  • Review search analytics (if enabled)
  • Check for zero-result queries

Weekly

  • Review popular queries
  • Check trending topics
  • Monitor performance

Monthly

  • Review and update stop words
  • Add new synonyms as needed
  • Update phrase boosting list
  • Review and optimize weights
  • Check index coverage

After Content Updates

  • Partial reindex if needed
  • Test search after bulk updates
  • Verify new content is searchable

Getting Help

← Back to Documentation Home | Getting Started → | Tuning Guide →