The index tends itself, but three situations call for a manual rebuild: after bulk imports that bypass normal publishing, after changing data outside WordPress, and after switching the storage engine. The Force Index Rebuild button lives under Elevated › Site Search › Settings › Advanced Options › Indexer.
Navigate to Elevated › Site Search › Settings, expand Advanced Options, and locate Indexer. The status line under the button shows the last rebuild time and the current document count.
Click Force Index Rebuild. The button reports the run (“Scheduling…”, then “Rebuilding…”) and search keeps serving the existing index while the new one builds.
When the run completes, the status line updates with the fresh timestamp and document count. On most sites a rebuild takes seconds to a few minutes, scaling with how much content is indexed.
If your agent is connected (see Connect Your AI Agent), you can skip the steps above:
Rebuild the search index and tell me the document count when it finishes.
The agent starts the rebuild (rebuilding requires it to confirm the action explicitly), follows the progress, and reads the final count back. Only one settings or index operation runs at a time.
The rebuild seems stuck. Reload the settings page to refresh the status line. A run interrupted by a server restart can be started again with the same button.
Content is still missing after a rebuild. The index only covers the configured scope. Confirm the post type is listed under Content to Index.
