WordPress plugin search

Google WordPress Plugin SearchJust a quick post: as noted on the wp-hackers mailing list 2 weeks ago: the search function for plugins on wordpress.org is a pain, it doesn’t work at all.

Using Google is not the easiest solution too, so I’ve create a Google custom search engine especially for plugins. You can find it here.

It should provide a lot better results, if you have any ideas on how to improve on it, let me know!

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20 Responses

  1. archshrkBy archshrk on 18 August, 2008

    I’ve never been a big fan of the theme search results either.

  2. Joost de ValkBy Joost de Valk on 18 August, 2008

    @archshrk I’ll make one for those too, tomorrow.

  3. JohnBy John on 19 August, 2008

    Thanks, this will be very useful.

    Just wondering – can you recommend a good breadcrumb plugin?

  4. ElijahBy Elijah on 19 August, 2008

    I’ve never been a big fan either of using theme search functions – just like you said, the results suck.

    I’m going to check this out.

  5. Joost de ValkBy Joost de Valk on 19 August, 2008

    @John Yeah, I’m releasing my own this afternoon. My conclusion was that all those on wordpress.org are crap.

    @Ellijha: good to hear that you’re checking it out :)

  6. SE7ENBy SE7EN on 19 August, 2008

    Please consider to add searcg on wp-plugins.net

  7. ErikBy Erik on 19 August, 2008

    THANK YOU, THANK YOU and THANK YOU. Searching for plug-ins using the provided search on wordpress.org was a PITA. One always ends up with loads of pages containing some word of the search term; wading through these “results” takes a lot of time and usually two or three relevant plug-ins.

    Could have thought of creating this kind of search myself, though. ;)

  8. Joost de ValkBy Joost de Valk on 19 August, 2008

    @ SE7EN: you mean add the search option for that domain inside this search engine? I just might, thx for the suggestion :) BTW: you should get an avatar with a transparent background instead of the white background :)

    @ Erik: hehe glad you like it :)

  9. GiantBy Giant on 19 August, 2008

    Two thumbs up for this search function. I always wondered why they didn’t improve the search area. Thanks again.

  10. Jean-Paul HornBy Jean-Paul Horn on 20 August, 2008

    Thanks Joost! An excellent idea and very very helpful and – alas – very needed too.

  11. wowbaggerBy wowbagger on 20 August, 2008

    Thanks Joost,
    This great work will save me a lot of time and we can stop using that annoying plugin search on wordpress.org. Thanks again…

  12. Joost de ValkBy Joost de Valk on 20 August, 2008

    Glad you all like it, thanks for the great feedback!

  13. Ryan LinkerBy Ryan Linker on 20 August, 2008

    Is there anyway for you to add this into the search boxes in the top right hand side of firefox? As this would make it alot easier and quiker to search for plugins (and soon to come themes). Thanks.

  14. Andrew GittBy Andrew Gitt on 22 August, 2008

    thanks joost, i love this plugin

  15. Paul W.By Paul W. on 22 August, 2008

    THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    For someone who looks for plugins on an hourly basis this is a godsend! I look forward to your theme engine. I am a huge fan of your blog, thanks for all your work!

  16. BeijingBy Beijing on 31 August, 2008

    Thank you I was also feeling the default search function of wordpress very bad, this would help me alot.

  17. Stu McLarenBy Stu McLaren on 10 October, 2008

    Thank you for creating this. This is going to be EXTREMELY handy for me.

    I can’t tell you how frustrated I’ve become trying to search for certain plugins. Most of the time it resulted in me just hiring someone to develop what I wanted. With this, I was really impressed with it’s speed. Even when I did broad searches like “comments” it pulled everything up really quickly.

  18. SandraBy Sandra on 26 May, 2009

    Great idea and needed badly. Thanks so much!

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  1. [...] looking for. It’s so bad that people like Joost de Valk at Yoast.com built his own google search engine for wordpress plugins. He says he is going to build a wordpress theme search engine for us, but until he does I have [...]

  2. [...] it at WordCamp. It’s so bad that people like Joost de Valk at Yoast.com built his own google search engine for wordpress plugins. He says he is going to build a wordpress theme search engine for us, but until he does I have [...]