Doofinder

Doofinder provides fast, accurate results based on your website contents. Results appear in your search box at an incredible speed as the user types.

Doofinder can be installed in any website with very little configuration (feed your search engine with data and put a bit of javascript code in your page).

This extension allows you to easily populate the data Doofinder needs to be able to search your database and to insert the Doofinder layer script into your WordPress site.

With Doofinder you are confident that your visitors are finding what they are looking for.

These are some advantages of using Doofinder in your site:

• Instant, relevant results.
• Tolerant of misspellings.
• Search filters.
• Increases the conversion rates.
• No technical knowledge are required.
• Allows the use of labels and synonyms.
• Installs in minutes.
• Provides statistical information.
• Doofinder brings back the control over the searches in your site to you.

When users start typing in the search box, Doofinder displays the best results for their search. If users make typos, our algorithms will detect them and will perform the search as if the term were correctly typed.

Furthermore, Doofinder sorts the results displaying the most relevant first.

More info: http://www.doofinder.com

Requirements

Important: To use this plugin you need to have an account at Doofinder. If you don’t have one you can signup here to get your 30 day free trial period.

The minimum technical equirements are basically the same as the WordPress ones. Take a look at their server requirements for more info.

Configuration

Once activated, you will see a new entry in the main menu called Doofinder with two sub-menus:

• Doofinder: To access the main settings page of the module.
• Index Posts: To access the indexing wizard.

NOTICE: Doofinder for WordPress has built-in support for WPML and PolyLang multi-language plugins. In case you use any of them, ensure you’ve switched context to one of the defined languages. In All Languages context you won’t be able to configure anything. You will have to configure as many search engines as languages you have in your site.

Doofinder Settings

Authentication

• API Key: This is the secret token you use to index contents (in ML environments you can share the same key). Your API key can be found in the Doofinder Control Panel. Click on your profile name (in the header) and then on API Keys. Make sure you’re using a Management API key and not a Search API key.
• Search Engine HashID: Id of the search engine that will index your contents. Can be found in the Doofinder Control Panel. Click on Search Engines in the header. Hash ID will be visible next to the name of your Search Engine. Remember to use different search engines for different languages if you’re in a ML environment.

Index Settings

• Post Types: Choose which contents you want to index.

Search Settings

• JS Layer: Enable the Doofinder JavaScript layer – when typing into a search field a window will pop up containing the list of results generated by Doofinder. This requires correct layer code pasted in the Layer Javascript Code field.
• JS Layer Script: Here you can paste the Layer Javascript Code that can be found in the Doofinder Control Panel. It is required for the Javascript Layer to work.
• Internal Search: Internal search overrides the default WordPress search that happens when users enter their search term and press Enter (and the website goes to the search results page).

IMPORTANT: Unless you know what you’re doing, it’s recommended to index contents first and, after the indexing process is finished, enable this option. If you switch the order, your site may return no results until something is indexed.

Index Posts

This section allows you to reindex all your contents. Just press the button and wait until it finishes. You will have to do this for each language if you’re in a ML environment.

IMPORTANT: Unless you know what you’re doing, it’s recommended to disable internal search when reindexing contents and, after the indexing process is finished, re-enable it. If you switch the order, your site may return no results until something is indexed.

IMPORTANT: Don’t leave the Index Posts screen until the process finished or your data won’t be fully indexed.