The best free people search engine on the web. People search is in gigantic demand right now (30% of all searches on Google & Yahoo are people search related, and that number is growing) because in this day and age we're trying to protect ourselves and our children as much as we can from predators and other nefarious people–and as employers, it is now possible to use the Internet to weed out prospective employees who will not be good for your company.

[...] Search A short time ago I wrote a post asking does WordPress needed its own search function any more?. At the time I was using Google search and found it to be far superior. Now though I have found [...]

Linas, it will be different for each theme as it really depends on how the author has done it. In the default theme you just need to remove the template tag from the sidebar: <?php get_search_form(); ?>

hey, I couldn't find validation for wp search function neither. And as I came to conclusion there's totaly no need of it – can anyone help me to get rid of a search bar? I'm a beginner with wp and still couldn't find any relevant material that would empower me to do that..:)
Thanks in advance;)

[...] Search Option I recently wrote a post asking does WordPress really needs a search function any more. The general consensus was that although there were other, easier options out there a default was [...]

Hey Tim, thanks for adding some perspective to this. You have a really good point about member driven sites, and the way WordPress is going as a platform is only going to intensify that, and I hadn't considered the issue of using the searches themselves to help drive users.

It sounds like there are scenarios where you might want to replace the search with a more specific alternative. For me that suggests that issuing the search functionality as a plugin would be a good idea because it gives the option to replace it outright.

I think a) people don't entirely want to be reliant on third parties to provide what should be a core function, b) that many peoples contents not fully indexed or indeed that they want their content to be indexed!

For example a wordpress blog using a membership plugin,is unlikely to be easily searched using Google for premium content (unless they use a first click free system) in such cases they might have to rely on Wordpress own search system, which like everything else is pretty expandable and can be modified with plugins and templates.

c) I just finished writing a simple plugin for a client using our Your Members plugin to allow them to show the “premium” content at the top of search results something she could do with Wordpress but would be difficult to do with a custom search.

d) The information you can get through plugins like search meter not only helps you identify rough numbers of searchers (I suspect its a lot higher then you think) but also what they are searching for, which provides you with the ability to perhaps create hub pages to meet there needs or maybe provide ideas for an articles.

that said Wordpress search sucks there is plenty you could do though Joost did a good Improving Wordpress Search Article not so long ago.

Sue, I honestly don't have much experience using the search, but from your experience it seems like it needs something done.

Nathan, I agree that removing it without providing it as an option would be bad. I am a very big fan of using plugins to give options instead of building things into the core, and more so, of removing things from the core that can be made into plugins.

The search functionality is something that could quite easily be a core plugin, as Akismet is, and sit beside other options such as a Google, Yahoo, or other plugin, option.

Leland, that's a good point about a site not indexing well. Still if it was a plugin the choice would be there.

I'll admit I'm not a big fan of the default WordPress search functionality. I usually just use a site-specific Google search if I'm looking for something. I still don't think it should be removed completely, however, because if a site (for whatever reason) isn't well-indexed in major search engines, it would be pretty hard to search through that way.

I really don't think it does, but it should always be an option.

Honestly, I would much prefer to use a google custom search for my blog, and make a little money off my searches, rather than use the inferior and non-monetized built-in WordPress search function.

I'm a new subscriber, and I just have to come in and comment on this.

WordPress search is the absolute worst function there is.

If I'm looking for a particular post on my site (through the manage panel), and I *know* the keyword is in there, most times it will throw up completely irrelevant pages. I find myself using Google Toolbar to find those pages on my site (!).

That said, I do provide an advanced search for users on my site, which works great. Unfortunately, it's not available in the back end. Oh well. :-)

And as a corollary, I've taken to using Google Search on other sites as well, knowing that it's much much better.