To rebuild the search index manually, navigate to Elevated › Product Search › Settings, scroll to the Indexer section, and click Force Index Rebuild. Wait for the success message indicating how many products were indexed.
Navigate to Elevated › Product Search › Settings.
Expand the Advanced Options tab and scroll to the bottom of the left panel to find the Indexer section.
This section contains the Force Index Rebuild button and the Index Schedule toggle.
Click Force Index Rebuild.
The indexer begins rebuilding in the background. A success message appears when the process completes, showing how many products were indexed.
After the success message appears, visit a page on your frontend where the search form is placed.
Search for a term that should match your current product data. Confirm that results appear as expected.
The indexer rebuilds automatically when you save settings. However, there are situations where you should force a manual rebuild.
If you imported products in bulk using a CSV import tool or a plugin such as WP All Import, the automatic rebuild may not trigger for every new item. Force a rebuild to ensure all imported products are indexed.
If you updated product data outside of WooCommerce, such as through direct database edits or a third-party inventory management system, the index may be out of sync with your actual catalog. A manual rebuild refreshes the index to match the current state.
If search results feel stale or incomplete after enabling a new searchable field in Search Scope, a rebuild ensures the new data is extracted and included.
If you enabled or changed Search Filters that exclude certain categories or out-of-stock products, a rebuild applies those rules across the entire catalog.
For large catalogs, the rebuild process uses batched loading to avoid server overload. You can leave the page, and the process will continue, but you will only see the final confirmation if you remain on the settings page.
The rebuild shows zero products indexed
Verify that products exist in your WooCommerce catalog. Check your Search Filters settings. If you are excluding out-of-stock products or filtering by specific categories, and no products match those criteria, the indexed count will be zero.
Search still returns no results after rebuilding
Confirm the fields you expect to search are enabled in Search Scope. If you rebuilt the index but the relevant field is toggled to OFF, the data is not indexed.
The rebuild button is unresponsive
Check your browser console for JavaScript errors. If the page is unresponsive, refresh and try again. For very large catalogs, the process may take longer than expected.
