Description
Smart Search Chips adds dynamic, clickable filter chips to your WordPress search results. Unlike traditional faceted search plugins that require you to predefine all filter options, Smart Search Chips automatically generates relevant filter tags from the actual search results.
How it works:
- User types a search query
- Plugin analyzes the top results and their Search Chips Tags
- Displays clickable filter chips ranked by frequency
- Automatically eliminates redundant chips (tags shared by all results)
- Clicking a chip filters results to only show matching products
Key Features:
- Dynamic chip generation from search results – no predefined facets needed
- Smart redundancy elimination – chips that don’t help narrow results are hidden
- Works with Relevanssi (recommended) for relevance-based scoring
- Uses the built-in Search Chips Tags field as the free tag source
- AJAX-powered live search with instant filtering
- Fully customizable colors, limits, and thresholds
- Override existing theme AJAX search handlers
- Theme template overrides for custom result rendering
- Shortcode [sschp_search] for easy integration
Works best with:
- Product catalogs with many similar items
- Technical documentation sites
- Any site where search results need smart filtering
Smart Search Chips Pro
Smart Search Chips Pro is available separately from https://smartsearchchips.app/ for teams that want ACF/custom field connectors, numeric range slider chips, search analytics, synonym rules, manual chip curation, AI-assisted tag workflows, and commercial support. The WordPress.org plugin is fully functional with its built-in Search Chips Tags field and does not require accounts or payment.
Privacy Policy
Smart Search Chips processes search queries entered by visitors to generate dynamic filter chips. Search queries are processed on this server and are not stored or sent to any third-party service by this WordPress.org edition. Full policy: https://smartsearchchips.app/privacy-policy/
Screenshots
Search for “tea” and filter chips appear automatically 
Click a chip to narrow results instantly 
The Smart Search Chips demo homepage
Installation
- Upload the
smart-search-chipsfolder to/wp-content/plugins/ - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu
- Go to Settings > Search Chips to configure
- Add Search Chips Tags to your posts/products using the plugin meta box
- Select which post types to search
- Optionally install Relevanssi (free) for better search ranking
Quick Start:
- Add semicolon-separated tags to the built-in Search Chips Tags field on your posts/products
- Select which post types to search in Settings > Search Chips
- Add
[sschp_search]shortcode to any page, or set “Override AJAX Action” to hook into your theme’s existing search
FAQ
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Do I need Relevanssi?
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No, but it’s recommended. Without Relevanssi, the plugin uses default WordPress search. With Relevanssi, you get relevance-based scoring which makes the chip generation smarter (irrelevant results are filtered out before chips are calculated).
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How do I populate the tag fields?
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Use the built-in Search Chips Tags meta box on each post/product. Tags should be semicolon-separated. ACF/custom field connectors are available separately in Smart Search Chips Pro.
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Can I override the search result HTML?
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Yes. Create a file at
your-theme/smart-search-chips/results.phpand the plugin will use it instead of the default template. The variable$sschp_postscontains the post data array. -
How does redundancy elimination work?
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The algorithm ranks tags by frequency, then for each candidate chip checks if it appears in ALL results of any already-selected chip’s group. If so, it’s redundant and hidden. This ensures only truly differentiating tags are shown.
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Can I use this with WooCommerce?
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Yes. Set “Post Types” to include “product”. The WooCommerce helper can populate the built-in Search Chips Tags field from product attributes, categories, tags, and SKU.
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Can external automation manage Pro chip rules?
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Yes. Smart Search Chips Pro exposes authenticated REST access for chip rules at
/wp-json/smart-search-chips/v1/chip-rules. Administrators can read or updatesynonym_rules,pinned_chips,hidden_chips, andrenamed_chipsusing standard WordPress REST authentication.
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Contributors & Developers
“Smart Search Chips” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
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Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- Initial release
- Core chip engine with redundancy elimination
- Relevanssi integration with relevance threshold
- AJAX search handler with chip filtering
- Admin settings page
- Shortcode [sschp_search]
- Theme template override support