WordPress plugin search

18 August 2008 Joost de Valk 20 comments, leave your own!

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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Categories: WordPress

18 Responses to “WordPress plugin search”

  1. By archshrk Mon, August 18th, 2008 at 22:48

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

  2. By Joost de Valk Mon, August 18th, 2008 at 23:22

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

  3. By John Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 01:22

    Thanks, this will be very useful.

    Just wondering - can you recommend a good breadcrumb plugin?

  4. By Elijah Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 04:51

    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. By Joost de Valk Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 07:05

    @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. By SE7EN Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 08:50

    Please consider to add searcg on wp-plugins.net

  7. By Erik Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 12:22

    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. By Joost de Valk Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 12:28

    @ 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. By Giant Tue, August 19th, 2008 at 23:19

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

  10. By Jean-Paul Horn Wed, August 20th, 2008 at 06:19

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

  11. By wowbagger Wed, August 20th, 2008 at 08:09

    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. By Joost de Valk Wed, August 20th, 2008 at 09:40

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

  13. By Ryan Linker Wed, August 20th, 2008 at 12:17

    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. By Andrew Gitt Fri, August 22nd, 2008 at 08:12

    thanks joost, i love this plugin

  15. By Paul W. Fri, August 22nd, 2008 at 18:15

    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. By Beijing Sun, August 31st, 2008 at 18:58

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

  17. By Stu McLaren Fri, October 10th, 2008 at 15:47

    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. By Sandra Tue, May 26th, 2009 at 11:30

    Great idea and needed badly. Thanks so much!

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