What is AI-powered website search?

AI-powered search can use semantic search to understand the meaning behind a visitor's query rather than relying solely on exact keyword matches. This helps it return relevant results when somebody uses different terminology, asks a question or makes a spelling mistake.

Does WP Engine Smart Search AI only work on WP Engine hosting?

No. Smart Search AI is available to WordPress websites hosted with other providers. The search indexing and processing take place on dedicated external infrastructure rather than on the WordPress web server.

Is smarter search useful for WooCommerce websites?

It can be particularly useful for stores with larger or more complex product catalogues. Semantic and fuzzy search can help customers find relevant products despite spelling mistakes or differences in terminology, while recommendations and filtering provide additional ways to discover suitable products.

Does every WordPress website need AI-powered search?

No. A small website with relatively little content may be perfectly well served by conventional search, or may not need search at all. We see the strongest case on ecommerce, membership and content-heavy websites where visitors regularly need to find information from a substantial collection of products, articles or resources.

coding Archives

Multiple magnifying glasses to illustrate the concept of smarter search

Why smarter search belongs on your WordPress website

At a glance WordPress’s built-in search only matches the exact words used, and it struggles with typos, different terminology and question-style queries. WP Engine’s Smart Search AI adds semantic search, so it understands the meaning behind a query, not just …

by Jim Semlyen 14 Sep 2026

WordPress can be a problem. We solve WordPress problems.

At a glance A problematic WordPress website doesn’t necessarily need replacing. We can often take over an existing site, identify what is going wrong and bring it up to the standards we expect from websites we build ourselves. We investigate …

by Jim Semlyen 11 Sep 2026

The importance of infrastructure in the age of AI bots

AI is changing the way people discover and interact with websites, but there is another consequence receiving considerably less attention: AI systems are becoming significant consumers of website infrastructure. We have recently seen this first-hand while investigating repeated periods of …

by Jim Semlyen 25 Aug 2026

Is your website infrastructure ready for AI crawlers?

Preparing a website for AI search isn’t only about content. AI crawlers place new demands on website infrastructure, from ensuring important content is accessible without relying on JavaScript to managing potentially enormous volumes of automated traffic. We look at what this means for WordPress performance, caching, CDNs and bot management.

by Jim Semlyen 16 Aug 2026

Our Latest Bespoke Websites

Our three latest projects are now online. This time we’ve been busy working on new websites for Harrogate-based social care organisation Community Catalysts, social development and human rights charity Good Neighbours UK, and bakery management app Cybake. Community Catalysts Local …

by Jim Semlyen 17 Dec 2019

Getting your web server mail through spam filters

Most of the websites we build have some need to send email out – even if it’s just a contact form to pass on enquiries to the business. For the more complex web applications we may need to send out email in bulk. This can be made pretty painful thanks to the ubiquitous spam filters that mailboxes will put in our way. Here’s what we’ve learnt.

by Andy Reading 16 Jan 2013

coding Archives

Tag: coding

Why smarter search belongs on your WordPress website

WordPress can be a problem. We solve WordPress problems.

The importance of infrastructure in the age of AI bots

Is your website infrastructure ready for AI crawlers?

Our Latest Bespoke Websites

Getting your web server mail through spam filters

Categories

Archives

Featured project

Featured project

Get in touch

Office address

Registered address

Sales

Support

Reviews