Elevated Product Search creates your WooCommerce product search form automatically on activation. All you need to do is add the shortcode to a page, widget, or your theme’s header area where you want the AJAX search to appear.
Elevated Product Search creates your WooCommerce search form automatically on activation. The form configuration lives in the plugin settings, and the [elex_product_search] shortcode displays that configured form wherever you place it.
Navigate to Elevated › Product Search › Settings.
The left side of the page contains all configuration options. The Preview panel on the right shows how your form will appear to customers.
Configure the basic settings:
Scroll down to configure results display:
Click Save Settings when finished. The shortcode [elex_product_search] now carries this configuration wherever you add it.
Advanced configuration options (under the Advanced Options section):
These options rebuild the search index automatically when saved. See individual documentation articles for detailed configuration of each feature.
To add the shortcode to your WooCommerce site, create a new page or open an existing one where you want the product search form to display.
In the editor, add a Shortcode block and enter:
[elex_product_search]
Save or update the page. Visit the page to confirm the search form appears.
Widget areas include sidebars, footers, and any theme-specific widget zones, and the steps to add a widget vary depending on your theme type.
[elex_product_search].[elex_product_search].For detailed instructions on sidebar placement, width adjustments, and troubleshooting narrow containers, see How to Add WooCommerce Product Search to Sidebar.
To add the search form to your site header, place the [elex_product_search] shortcode using one of the following methods based on your theme setup.
[elex_product_search] where you want it, then save.<?php echo do_shortcode('[elex_product_search]'); ?> to your theme’s header.php file, or use a code snippet plugin.For complete step-by-step instructions covering each method, see How to Add Search to Your Menu or Header.
The plugin automatically builds a search index from your WooCommerce products when activated. If you add new products or modify searchable fields later, you may need to save your settings to rebuild the index.
Go to Elevated › Product Search › Settings and open the Advanced Options panel on the left side of the page.
Scroll to the Indexer section.
Click Force Index Rebuild.
A success message appears at the bottom of the screen indicating how many products were indexed (for example: “Successfully indexed 24 products”).
The product search form shortcode displays as plain text
Make sure you are using a Shortcode block in the block editor, Site Editor, or page builder. If you pasted it into a Paragraph block, cut the text and re-add it using the Shortcode block.
WooCommerce product search returns no results
Go to Elevated › Product Search › Settings and check the Indexer section. If you recently added products or changed search scope settings, click Force Index Rebuild and wait for the success message to appear.
The product search form does not appear in the widget area
Some classic themes disable shortcodes in widgets. Add this to your theme’s functions.php file or via WPCodeBox:
add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');Changes to header.php break the site
If editing the theme file directly causes errors, restore the original file from a backup. Then use WPCodeBox or a child theme to add the code safely without modifying the parent theme.
