Plainseek documentation

Plainseek is a WooCommerce product search that understands plain language. A shopper can type "red dress under $50", and Plainseek finds red dresses that cost less than $50.

This guide explains how to install Plainseek, where the search bar appears, what every setting does, and how to use the optional AI features.

Getting started

Requirements

AI features are optional. They need an account with an AI provider. See AI features.

Install

1. Download the plugin from CodeCanyon. Choose Installable WordPress file only, or unzip the full download and find plainseek.zip inside.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin and click Upload Plugin.
3. Choose plainseek.zip, click Install Now, then click Activate.

WooCommerce must be active. If it is not, Plainseek shows a notice and waits.

First steps

1. Open Plainseek > Dashboard. Plainseek starts indexing your products in the background as soon as you activate it. The Index card shows the progress. Most stores are ready in a few minutes.
2. Look at the Try it box on the Dashboard. Type a search the way a shopper would, for example cheapest leather boots. You see exactly what shoppers will see.
3. Visit your store. The theme's search box now uses Plainseek. To place the search bar somewhere else, see The search bar.

The search bar

The search bar shows results while the shopper types: product images, names, prices, categories, and what Plainseek understood from the search. Shoppers can use it with the keyboard only: the up and down arrow keys move through the results, Enter opens one, and Escape closes the list.

Replace the theme search

By default, Plainseek replaces the theme's search form, the core Search block, and the WooCommerce product search. This works in block themes and in classic themes. To turn it off, go to Plainseek > Search > Where the search bar appears.

Block

In the block editor or the Site Editor, add the Plainseek Search block. In the block settings, you can set the placeholder, the size (small, medium, or large), and whether to show the Search button. To put the search bar in your header, open Appearance > Editor, edit the Header template part, and add the block.

Shortcode

Add the search bar anywhere that accepts shortcodes:

[plainseek]

Elementor

In the Elementor panel, search for Plainseek Search and drag the widget onto the page. It has the same options as the block.

How shoppers search

Plainseek reads a search before it runs it. Words that match your store become filters, and the rest is searched as text. Shoppers see what was understood as chips, for example Red Under $50. Clicking a chip removes it.

Typos, plurals, and synonyms

"weding dersses" finds wedding dresses, and the results say "Showing results for wedding dress". "dresses" also finds "dress". Words from your synonyms find each other, so "couch" can find sofas.

When nothing matches

If a filter leaves no products, Plainseek drops it and says so. For example, if you have no red wedding dresses, "red wedding dress" shows other wedding dresses with the note "No exact match for Red. Showing similar products." Shoppers do not see an empty page.

The results page

When a shopper presses Enter, the normal WooCommerce search results page opens. Plainseek chooses and orders the products, and your theme shows them with its usual templates. The chips appear at the top of the page. If the shopper picks a sort order from the shop's sort menu, that order is used.

Settings

Every screen is under the Plainseek menu. Settings screens show a bar at the bottom of the page when you have unsaved changes.

Search

Appearance

Choose the accent color, the corner radius, the size, and the placeholder. The text color on the Search button is picked for good contrast automatically. The preview on the right uses your real products.

Leave the placeholder empty to show an example search, such as Try "red dress under $50". This teaches shoppers that they can type plain language.

Synonyms

Synonyms teach Plainseek the words your shoppers use that your products do not.

• Two-way: every word finds the others. Example: sofa, couch, settee.
• One-way: the first word also finds the others, but not the reverse. Example: laptop to notebook, macbook. A search for "laptop" finds notebooks, but a search for "notebook" does not show every laptop.

Words and short phrases both work. Changes apply right away, without a rebuild.

Suggested synonyms

When shoppers search for words that find nothing, Plainseek suggests a fix in two ways:

• What shoppers typed next. If a shopper searched "red couch", found nothing, then searched "red sofa" and found products, Plainseek suggests "couch" and "sofa".
• Spelling. If a word is close to a word your products use, Plainseek suggests it.

Click Add synonym to accept a suggestion.

Import and export

The CSV file has one group per line: the type (two_way or one_way), a comma, and the words separated by |.

two_way,sofa|couch|settee
one_way,laptop|notebook|macbook

Analytics

The Analytics screen shows the number of searches, searches with no results, searches that led to a click, a daily chart, top searches, searches with no results, and the most clicked products. Export the list of searches as a CSV file with Export CSV.

Plainseek stores only the search text, the number of results, the clicked product, and the date. It does not store IP addresses or link searches to accounts. Searches by store managers are not counted by default. Bots are not counted. You choose how long data is kept, from 30 days to 3 years.

Tools

AI features (optional)

Plainseek works fully without AI. AI features add three things:

• Search by meaning. "Something for a beach wedding" finds sundresses and sandals, even when the product text does not contain those words.
• Long questions. A chat model turns a long question into a short search, and both result lists are combined.
• The shopping assistant. See Shopping assistant.

Plainseek does not include or resell any AI service. You connect your own account with an AI provider and pay the provider directly.

What is sent

AI features are off until you turn them on. Before you can turn them on, the AI screen shows this table and asks you to confirm.

Never sent: customer names, email addresses, orders, addresses, IP addresses, or account data. You can turn AI off at any time with Turn off AI. Nothing is sent after that.

Set up

1. Go to Plainseek > AI, read what is sent, tick the box, and click Turn on AI features.
2. Under Search by meaning, choose an embeddings provider, paste your API key, and click Test connection. Leave the model empty to use the suggested one, or click Load models to choose another.
3. Under Chat model, choose a chat provider. It can be the same provider or a different one.
4. Click Save changes. Plainseek starts sending your products to the embeddings provider in the background. The progress bar shows when every product is ready.

Exact words vs. meaning

This slider sets how results are blended. Lower values favor products that contain the typed words. Higher values favor products that match what the shopper means. 50 is a good start.

How AI search stays fast

Keyword results appear at once while the shopper types. When the shopper pauses on a search of two or more words, the search bar asks for AI-refined results and updates the list. Each search is embedded once and cached for 30 days.

Providers

If you pair Anthropic Claude as the chat model, choose another provider for search by meaning, for example Voyage AI or OpenAI.

Cost control

• AI requests per day limits shopper searches and assistant messages. When the limit is reached, search keeps working with keywords only. Indexing products does not count.
• AI searches per visitor per minute stops one visitor or a bot from using up your limit.
• The AI screen shows the estimated size of your catalog in tokens, today's requests, and chat tokens for the last 30 days.
• Products are embedded again only when their text changes. Searches and rewritten questions are cached for 30 days.

Shopping assistant

The assistant is a chat window where shoppers ask for products and get answers about your store. It needs a chat model. See Set up.

1. Go to Plainseek > Assistant and turn on Turn on the shopping assistant.
2. Choose where it appears: a floating button, an "Ask the assistant" row in the search bar, or both.
3. Under Store pages, pick the pages with your policies, such as Shipping, Returns, or FAQ.
4. Save, then use the Try it box to ask a question the way a shopper would.

What it knows

• Your products, found with Plainseek's own search.
• Your WooCommerce shipping zones and methods, read automatically.
• The parts of your chosen store pages that match the question.
• Your store name, currency, and contact page (a page with the address /contact or /contact-us).

How it stays accurate

• It may only recommend products Plainseek found. Product cards show real prices, stock, and an add to cart button from WooCommerce, so it cannot invent a product or a price.
• It answers store questions only from your pages and shipping zones. If the answer is not there, it says it is not sure and points to your contact page.
• Questions that have nothing to do with your store get a short, polite answer.

The conversation is kept in the shopper's browser tab. It is not stored on your server. Only the question text is added to your analytics, and you can turn that off.

Privacy

Plainseek adds suggested text to Settings > Privacy > Policy Guide. Copy the parts that match how you set Plainseek up into your privacy policy.

• Analytics store search text, result counts, clicked products, and dates. No IP addresses, no user accounts.
• The search bar keeps recent searches in the shopper's own browser.
• Visitor limits use a hashed IP address that is kept for one minute only.
• With AI features on, see What is sent.

For developers

Filters

Example: index a custom field

add_filter( 'plainseek_document_fields', function ( $fields, $product ) {
	$fields['designer'] = (string) $product->get_meta( 'designer' );
	return $fields;
}, 10, 2 );

add_filter( 'plainseek_field_weights', function ( $weights ) {
	$weights['designer'] = 6;
	return $weights;
} );

Rebuild the index in Plainseek > Tools after adding a field.

Actions

Styling

The search bar and the assistant use CSS custom properties. Override them in your theme:

:root {
	--plainseek-accent: #0f766e;
	--plainseek-radius: 4px;
	--plainseek-bg: #ffffff;
	--plainseek-text: #111827;
	--plainseek-muted: #6b7280;
	--plainseek-border: #d1d5db;
	--plainseek-hover: #f3f4f6;
}

REST API

Database tables

WordPress recommends few custom tables. Plainseek needs three, because a search index cannot be fast in the posts and meta tables.

Prices, stock, and sales are read from WooCommerce's own wc_product_meta_lookup table, so search never shows an old price.

Troubleshooting

The index stays at 0 or stops

Plainseek indexes with Action Scheduler, which WooCommerce includes. It runs on WP-Cron. If WP-Cron is off on your server (DISABLE_WP_CRON), make sure a real cron job calls wp-cron.php. You can see waiting jobs in Tools > Scheduled Actions, group plainseek. Plainseek > Tools > System status shows whether WP-Cron is on.

A product does not appear in search

• Check that it is published, not password-protected, and that its catalog visibility is Shop and search results or Search results only.
• If WooCommerce hides out of stock items, out of stock products are hidden in search too.
• Use Rebuild index in Tools.

The theme's search box did not change

Some themes build their search form without the standard WordPress functions. Add the Plainseek Search block or the [plainseek] shortcode instead, and hide the theme's own search in the theme options.

"The API key was not accepted"

Check the key and that it has permission for the model. For Azure OpenAI, check the address and use your deployment names as models.

"The provider is limiting requests or the account has no credit left"

Check your balance and rate limits with the provider. Search keeps working with keywords in the meantime. Embedding retries by itself, and Try again now on the AI screen restarts it.

Ollama on the same server cannot be reached

Use the address the web server can reach. In Docker setups this is often http://host.docker.internal:11434/v1 instead of localhost.

Support and changelog

For help, use the Support tab on the Plainseek page on CodeCanyon. Please include the System status from Plainseek > Tools.

Changelog

1.0.0 - 2026-09-25

• First release.