Get up and running with Lumenare Search in minutes.
Current release: 2.2.01
Installation
From WordPress.org
- Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress admin
- Search for "Lumenare Search"
- Click Install Now, then Activate
Manual Installation
- Download the plugin from WordPress.org
- Upload the
lumenare-searchfolder to/wp-content/plugins/ - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
Initial Configuration
After activation, configure your basic settings:
- Go to Settings → Lumenare Search
- Start on the Setup tab and apply the recommended preset
- Review basic settings:
- Enable Plugin – Turn Lumenare Search on
- Search placeholder text – What users see in the search input
- Minimum characters – How many characters before search triggers (default: 3)
- Post types to search – Which content types to include
Setup Presets
The Setup tab gives admins a faster starting point:
| Preset | Best For |
|---|---|
| ASP Migration | Sites replacing Ajax Search Pro; shown only when ASP data or leftovers are detected |
| Publisher | News, magazines, blogs, and editorial archives |
| Commerce | Product catalogs and SKU-like searches |
| Knowledge Base | Documentation and support libraries |
| Performance | Very large sites that want lightweight scoring first |
Lumenare recommends a preset when it detects ASP data tables or leftovers, WooCommerce products, documentation-style post types, or a large editorial archive. ASP-specific setup and import options stay hidden on clean installs. Applying a preset updates ranking, suggestion, freshness, trending, and click-boost defaults without replacing your selected post types.
Recommended Initial Settings
| Setting | Recommended Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Characters | 3 | Balances responsiveness with meaningful queries |
| Match Mode | Any (OR) | Returns broader results for most sites |
| Fuzzy Matching | Enabled | Helps users find content despite typos |
| Highlighting | Enabled | Shows users why results matched |
Building the Index
Before search works, you need to build the search index:
- Navigate to the Index Management tab
- Click "Reindex All Content"
- Wait for indexing to complete
The indexer processes content in batches, so large sites can index without timeout issues. A progress bar shows completion status.
What Gets Indexed
The indexer extracts keywords from:
- Post titles – Highest weight (default: 10)
- Post excerpts – Medium weight (default: 5)
- Post content – Base weight (default: 1)
- Taxonomy terms – Categories, tags, and enabled public taxonomies
- Authors and selected custom fields – Optional relevance sources
- Document attachments – Optional PDF/Office/RTF/text extraction when enabled
Keywords are normalized (lowercase, special characters removed) and stored with per-field occurrence counts for fast relevance scoring.
Using the Search
Automatic Integration
Lumenare Search automatically replaces:
- Default WordPress search forms
- Gutenberg Search blocks
- Theme search forms
No additional configuration needed! Your existing search forms will use Lumenare Search.
Shortcode
Add a search form anywhere with the shortcode:
[lumenare_search]
Place this in any post, page, or text widget.
Widget
Add the search widget to any widget area:
- Go to Appearance → Widgets
- Find the "Lumenare Search" widget
- Drag it to your desired widget area
- Configure widget title (optional)
Trending And Latest Search Lists
Add the Lumenare Search Trends widget or Lumenare Search Trends block to show public trending or latest successful searches.
Both surfaces can be configured for trending/latest mode, list or chip layout, search counts, time period, item limit, and zero-result filtering.
Latest searches default to repeated successful queries so one-off private searches are not promoted publicly. Lower the minimum occurrence setting only when the site's analytics policy allows raw latest-query display.
Set Up Search & Answers
Version 2.2.00 combines the former Semantic Search and Ask Site settings under Settings → Lumenare Search → Search & Answers.
Start with keyword search or Understand questions and Sources and cited excerpts. Choose whether to enable the Ask Site form, answers above submitted search results, or both. Search behavior, answer style, and placement are separate choices. Upgrading preserves your existing settings without enabling new AI features or answer placements.
For optional meaning reranking:
- Install and configure the WordPress AI plugin and a connector that offers embedding models.
- Grant any required Lumenare Search approval for that service.
- In Search & Answers → Advanced, choose the service and click Refresh model list.
- Select an embedding model from the list and click Save Settings.
- Click Analyze site content and keep the page open while its batches run. Pause or resume from the same screen.
- Once compatible passages and embeddings are ready, choose Meaning reranking (needs AI) for the intended search profile and save.
- Test a factual question, check its sources, and test a question your site cannot answer.
Analysis creates local passages and embeddings; it does not train a model or switch on meaning search or AI-written answers. Meaning reranking only reorders existing keyword candidates. Embedding and answer requests may incur provider charges.
See the Search & Answers guide for readiness checks, model selection, and the full Analyze workflow. See Ask Site for its shortcode and block.
Next Steps
Optimize Your Search
Once search is working, consider these optimizations:
-
Review the Weighting System
- Understand how relevance scoring works: Weighting System
- Tune weights for your content: Tuning Guide
-
Configure Stop Words
- Add common words that don't add search value
- Reduces index size and improves relevance
- Found in Settings → Lumenare Search → Search Quality → Stop Words
-
Set Up Synonyms
- Define equivalent terms to expand search coverage
- Example:
car, automobile, vehicle - Found in Settings → Lumenare Search → Search Quality → Synonyms
-
Add Important Phrases
- Boost relevance for specific multi-word terms
- Example:
WordPress security,Sega Genesis - Found in Settings → Lumenare Search → Search Quality → Search Phrases
Monitor Performance
-
Check Search Analytics
- Go to Settings → Lumenare Search → Analytics
- Review popular queries to understand user intent
- Check zero-result queries to identify content gaps
- Monitor trending topics
-
Review Search Intelligence
- Go to Settings → Lumenare Search → Search Intelligence
- Review result impressions, CTR opportunities, query promotions, synonym drafts, remediation outcomes, and Search ROI
- Use source filters to separate native Lumenare data from imported Ajax Search Pro history
-
Review Index Status
- Check indexing coverage in Index Management tab
- Green "Good" status means 90%+ coverage
- Reindex if coverage drops or after bulk content changes
Common Tasks
Reindex Content
When to reindex:
- After changing stop words
- After changing post types to search
- After changing a field weight from zero to a positive value, so previously omitted content is indexed
- After enabling document indexing or changing document MIME types
- After bulk content updates or imports
How to reindex:
- Go to Settings → Lumenare Search → Index Management
- Click "Reindex All Content" for full rebuild
- Or use Partial Reindex options for specific updates:
- Index only new posts (since last full reindex)
- Index specific post types
- Index posts within a date range
- For ongoing large catalogs, enable automatic new-content reindexing and choose the WP-Cron interval in Index Management
Adjust Relevance
If results aren't relevant:
- Review your weights in the Tuning Guide
- Increase title weight if titles are descriptive
- Add stop words for common irrelevant terms
- Configure synonyms for better matching
- Add phrase boosting for important multi-word terms
- Save and test weight changes – positive-to-positive weight changes affect ranking immediately. Reindex when changing a field from zero to a positive weight because its content may have been omitted from the index.
Troubleshoot Issues
If search isn't working:
- Check plugin is enabled in settings
- Verify index exists (Index Management tab shows count)
- See the full Troubleshooting Guide
Settings Reference
Setup Tab
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Search Presets | Apply a curated search behavior profile | Recommended per site |
| Next Moves | Jump to imports, quality tuning, intelligence, or index tools | Available |
General Tab
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Plugin | Turn plugin on/off globally | Enabled |
| Search Placeholder | Text shown in search input | "Search…" |
| Minimum Characters | Characters required before search triggers | 3 |
| Post Types | Which post types to include | Posts, Pages |
Search Quality Tab
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Match Mode | ANY (OR) or ALL (AND) keyword matching | Any |
| Stop Words | Words to exclude from indexing | Common English words |
| Synonyms | Groups of equivalent words | Common synonyms |
| Fuzzy Matching | Enable typo tolerance | Disabled |
| Fuzzy Threshold | Edit distance for fuzzy matches | 2 |
| Suggestion Providers | Ordered provider chain for suggested searches | Analytics, imported stats, taxonomies, index terms |
| Phrase Boost | Multiplier for configured phrase matches | 1.5 |
| Title/Excerpt/Content Weight | Relevance weights | 10/5/1 |
| Taxonomy Weights | Category and tag weights | 5/3 |
| Exact/Prefix/Suffix Multipliers | Multi-pass search weighting | 10/5/2 |
| Secondary Sort | Tie-break or selected date sort | Newest first |
| Freshness Boost | Recently updated content lift | Enabled |
| Audio Attachment Boost | Small lift for posts with ListenUp audio metadata | Visible when ListenUp is installed; default 1.15x |
| Document Indexing | Optional attachment content extraction | Disabled |
Search & Answers
| Section | What to configure |
|---|---|
| Status | Local readiness and content preparation |
| Search behavior | Keyword search, question understanding, or optional meaning reranking |
| Answers | Cited excerpts or opt-in AI-written summaries |
| Placement | Ask Site form and submitted search-result answers, enabled independently |
| Advanced | AI service, embedding model list, Analyze site content, and analysis tuning |
AI writing and meaning reranking are opt-in. New answer placements are not enabled automatically by an upgrade. Configure per-surface overrides in the separate Search Profiles section.
Display Tab
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Results Per Page | Results on search page | 10 |
| Dropdown Results | Results in live dropdown | 10 |
| Highlighting | Highlight matching terms | Enabled |