Fixing WordPress Search + Plugin Licenses

First things first… Happy Mothers Day to all of the moms out there. ♥️ I know I’m a day late (because I obviously don’t send newsletters on Sundays 😇 ), but Moms are special in so many ways. One of the most important roles on the planet.

I picked up my new (to me) RV late last week… which means I obviously spent a decent chunk of my weekend fixin’ stuff. 🤪 I’m no stranger to these things, so no surprises here. Fixin’ stuff goes with the territory. 🤣

Alright, let’s get to business…

First up, I tested a couple of solutions for fixing the otherwise lame WordPress search functionality. And I’ll share which I picked. You could be a little suprised.

I also wanted to share my thoughts on what goes into the Concierge Toolkit… and why I’m a big believer in paying for the support licenses while others may not.

So, let’s light this candle, shall we? 👇

Fixing WordPress Search

Not all WordPress sites have a search function. In many cases, there’s no point in having a search function because the site doesn’t really have enough content to justify it. Sending people into dead ends makes no sense. 😇

But, when you DO put a search function on the site, it usually isn’t even very good.

See, the WordPress search function basically sucks. 🤡

The way it is programmed is just quite basic. And it lacks any of the more robust logic that would lead to more accurate search results. So, more often than not, you plug in a search term and the results are rather lame. It also has no built-in support for custom fields, excerpts, comments, or much of anything. It literally only searches titles and content and even that it does in a rather “dumb” way.

So, this last week, I did some testing with a couple of different plugin options that are designed to provide a proper search engine for your site.

I did some testing of both SearchWP and Relevanssi.

The TLDR is this… while SearchWP is actually more robust, I am choosing to use Relevanssi. Both are great plugins, however.

One of the core reasons for my choice can be found right in the size of the core downloads: The core SearchWP plugin comes in at 4.1MB while Relevanssi comes in at just 792KB.

Point is… Relevanssi is far more efficient and streamlined in what it does and doesn’t add any bloat to the website it is running on. And it is in no way less accurate than SearchWP.

What SearchWP has that Relevanssi doesn’t is:

• A snazzy interface which is indeed much nicer and easier to use.
• Ability to create custom search engines and search forms right in the interface
• An army of add-on plugins to add various other features to the search engine
• More support for third-party plugins

There’s no doubt that SearchWP is a more robust product.

It also happens to be a product of Awesome Motive. As you probably know, I’m not the biggest fan of the tactics of that company. (Read more about those tactics here). One of which is their install wizard which tries to auto-install a bunch of their other plugins, but I avoided that by un-checking all the automatically checked boxes. 🤪 Also, I think SearchWP is too expensive. For just one site, they’re asking $99 for the first year, then $199/year after that. And since I like to test plugins for possible inclusion into the Concierge Toolkit, I look at the agency license at $699/year which would make this plugin among the most expensive licenses in my arsenal. All for a search engine. No thank you.

So, I looked at Relevanssi. Clearly, by looking at the file size, this is a more streamlined plugin. And, it works quite well. The results are just as accurate because the core way these plugins work is the same. Also, it is only ONE plugin, whereas SearchWP has a ton of add-ons which will lead to multiple plugins installed just for search.

So, what does Relevanssi lack?

• The interface in WP-Admin is more native to WordPress without all the fancy styling.
• The interface is also a little more… nerdy. Quite manageable, but not as user-friendly.
• It doesn’t have any Gutenberg blocks for customizable search forms. It does have shortcode, but it is a little more nerdy to integrate the search into your website. And if you want custom looks, you’ll end up modifying your child theme and/or CSS.

Also, Relevanssi comes with a pretty nice FREE version, making this accessible for everybody. The Pro features are nice, though, and MUCH more affordable than SearchWP. $113.07/year for unlimited sites or $395.76 for unlimited for lifetime. Strange pricing, to be sure (likely due to the VAT tax since the developer is based in Finland). But, much more affordable for people who have multiple sites.

So, I will be adding Relevanssi to the Concierge Toolkit. And the reasons I am choosing this one instead of the arguably more robust SearchWP is:

• Relevanssi is far more efficient and doesn’t have all the bloat, meaning no impact on site performance and it won’t expand your list of active plugins by any more than one.
• I don’t like putting Awesome Motive plugins on my client sites. Sorry. 🤷‍♂️
• I like to support the developers of the plugins I add to the Toolkit, and SearchWP is rather ridiculous when it comes to pricing.

And there you have it. 😇

This Week In Concierge

Very often, when I bring in a new client to Concierge, we end up having to deal with their email as part of the hosting migration.

I obviously never require a client to migrate hosting, but most elect to come over to Rocket Hosting because it is so good and is included in Concierge services. But, Rocket does not host one’s email.

And in fact, I was very intentional about not offering email hosting as part of Concierge. Frankly, I don’t want to be responsible for your email. 😇 But, many times, when clients come in, we have to figure out the best way to handle their domain-based email. On many, many occasions, I end up having to help migrate a client’s email. So, here’s the gist of it…

As a general rule, I recommend you keep your email and your web hosting separated.

The expertise that goes into good email service and good web hosting are two different skillsets. If you are getting email service from your webhost, usually it is pretty basic service, often through a reseller. They don’t specialize in that kind of thing. Not only that, it then increases the complexity of being able to migrate to another host. And you want to keep that flexibility.

For my clients, my “go to” recommendation for email service is FastMail. I love FastMail and I use it myself. They provide an awesome service and they specialize in that service. It is also incredibly affordable. I only pay $60/year for it and it is more than worth it.

When a client needs a new home for their email, I will refer them to FastMail. It is the client’s account and it is not managed by me. I will help get them set up and migrate their existing email into FastMail, then I’m out of there. 😇

If a client is already using some other service which is separate for their web hosting, then we don’t need to do a thing. Everything stays as is.

And by using a quality dedicated service like FastMail for email, it means you are free to migrate your website anywhere you please much more easily. In most cases, that means people moving their sites INTO Rocket and into Concierge service. However, it also means security for the client… because it means if you were to leave Concierge and need to migrate your site out later, your email is secure right where it is and no need to make a change.

And that’s how we handle email in Concierge. 😎

WordPress Quick Bits

WordPress UnBlocking People. So, when Matt Mullenweg went ape on WP Engine in 2024 and caused a big uproar, he also went on a ban spree on all the official WordPress social accounts and WordPress.org itself. A ton of people who rubbed him the wrong way were kicked off. And NOW… the “leadership team” is doing a review of blocked community members. You know, because of their “commitment to a healthy and inclusive community”…….. [cough] 🤡

32 Accounts Reinstated (so far). On the above note, it looks like 32 WordPress.org accounts have been thus far reinstated. They sure are making a big deal out of it. They had to hit a button 32 times. I guess all those “human blocks” from the benevolent dictator are proving time consuming. 🤪

What It Feels Like. Those WordPress.org bans have real impacts because the people with those accounts are the movers and shakers in WordPress. For one person’s account, Chris Reynolds wrote his own recount about being banned without warning and then having it reversed… also without comment.

Tiny, But Useful. Andrew Hoyer has released a tiny little plugin called SEO Warning on Github. Have you ever launched a WordPress site without realizing that the option to discourage search engines was enabled? Yeah. 😜 Well, this tiny little plugin will show an alert on the admin bar so you don’t forget when that option is turned on.

Kadence Released Mosaic Gallery. I don’t use it very often, but Kadence Blocks has a nice Gallery block for creating image galleries. And a recent release now also offers a Mosaic option for display of the gallery. Mosaic arranges pictures of different sizes and shapes to fit together perfectly, with no awkward gaps between them.

PersonalizeWP New API Endpoints. OK, so yeah, this sounds really nerdy. 🤓 PersonalizeWP is a powerful tool for personalization on your website, allowing you to show tailored content to the right people at the right time. It offers a lot of different ways to access that data and use it, but their new 2.9 release offers API access to visitor activities and visitor segments, allowing this data to be used in other integrations. Their announcement post actually does a great job of spelling it out in non-nerd language.

StellarSites Launches. StellarWP, the company behind Kadence, GiveWP and Learndash has launched a new managed hosting service called StellarSites. Basically, it is cloud hosting with the Stellar plugins baked into the offer. They offer different packages based on your goals: Shop, Learning, Fundraising, etc. Of course, centered around the plugins they own. Could be interesting for some folks, perhaps.

B2B For SureCart. SurelyWP has released B2B For Surecart, an add-on plugin for SureCart stores that enables certain B2B features such as wholesale pricing, catalog mode, inquiry forms, a built-in messaging system, a quote builder, etc. If you’re a SureCart user (or thinking of using it over WooCommerce), SurelyWP might be worth checking out because all they do is extensions for SureCart.

How I Manage The Concierge Toolkit

One of the many benefits of enrolling your site into Concierge is access to the Concierge Toolkit. This means access to premium, licensed plugins for your site without the need to acquire your own license.

But, I wanted to talk about that issue of licensing.

In the past, I have talked about the GPL software license and what are called GPL Clubs. See this video here: Premium Wordpress Themes & Plugins For Free: What is a Wordpress GPL Club? Are They Legit?

The fact that WordPress uses the GPL license is a really big deal and has led to massive growth in this ecosystem. It is what has made WordPress what it is. It also means that, legally, there are often ways to get many of these premium plugins without actually paying for them.

There are also other service providers in this space that also offer access to premium plugins as part of their service. I’m not alone in doing that. However, I also happen to know that many of these providers are taking advantage of the GPL license to do that.

In other words, these providers are grabbing plugins from GPL club sites and reselling them to their clients. And in my opinion, this is not the right thing to do.

When I add a tool to the Toolkit, I am paying for the support license before I do that. Yes, it costs me money. Yes, it reduces my profit margin. But, I still feel it is important.

See, the way I look at it, it goes right to the core definition of “Concierge“. When you go see the Concierge, you’re looking for help and support. Ultimately, I am in the customer support business.

Simply put, if I am installing a bunch of unlicensed software to client sites, it means that:

• There are no automatic updates from the developer, putting me in a “middle man” position to have to update it manually. If I can even get it.
• I have no assistance from the developer if a problem arises.

It means I am offering LESS reliable service to my own clients if I rely on GPL licenses. There are SOOOO many times I have assisted my clients with things on their sites in conjunction with the plugin developers. I’ve worked with Jack from WP Fusion on multiple occasions (he’s fantastic), I’ve worked with support from Presto Player, CartFlows, the team behind the “Fluent” products, and many others. I’ve even had bugs fixed by support teams and been able to install those fixes to my client sites before the official fix was even released publicly.

The way I look at it, I cannot provide the proper level of support for my Concierge clients unless I hold valid agency licenses to the plugins I’m installing on their sites.

Not to mention… if I’m going to be installing these plugins on multiple client sites, isn’t it right for the developers of these plugins to make some money for their hard development work? I just hung out with many of these great developers in Arizona at PressConf just a couple weeks ago. They work hard on these quality plugins. These quality plugins is what enables me to provide such a great platform for my clients. For me to swipe their code and make money from it without any exchange to the developer feels wrong.

In some cases, I’ve seen premium plugins that are nulled by these GPL clubs, too. For instance, when I tested SearchWP above, I didn’t pay for it. I grabbed it from a GPL site. But, I looked at the code and they have a “license” code hard-coded into the PHP and re-routed all server calls so it wouldn’t “phone home” to check for a valid license. That means the plugin was nulled. It was modified. And, if they modified that, how can one guarantee it wasn’t modified in other ways too? Nulled plugins CAN be a security risk, in some cases.

So absolutely…. I could make my Concierge Toolkit much, much larger if I wanted to start packing it with the list of plugins I have access to. I can get premium plugins through GPL sites just like everybody else. In my business, I’d be stupid not to have that kind of tool in my arsenal as well. But…

I’m not going to pack my Toolkit bundle like that. I feel it would be a disservice for me to be packing my client sites with unlicensed software. I would not be able to provide the proper level of support like that.

I am front-line support for my clients. But, behind me is a team which happens to work with the companies I do business with on behalf of my clients. I use Rocket because their support team is awesome. And I maintain support licenses with the plugins in the Toolkit so that I can tap on those teams for support on behalf of my clients when the need arises.

To do anything else puts my client sites at risk because I become the potential weak point in the support chain. That wouldn’t be a very good Concierge if I did that. 😇