Best Smart Search Extensions For Your Magento 2 Store

Last Updated on April 6, 2022

Can you put all your products on a single page on your ecommerce site? The answer is an obvious no, as the products page will get kilometers long. This is the reason why we make categories and set different attributes to the product so the users can browse through them easily. In today’s world, the variety and range of products of every industry are continuously growing, and products on ecommerce are no exception. In turn, the number of categories and product pages are also shooting up. This leads to the importance of a proper website structure. But, the thing is not limited to a good site structure. A good site structure will help you that your customers don’t go away from your site; however, these are the functionalities of your site that will compel them to purchase on your site.

The problem becomes more serious when there are a huge number of products on your stock and the customer has to wander through a lot of similar-looking products for a perfect match. And because of that, you will lose your potential customer. To solve this problem you have to add search functionality to your Magento 2 and Shopify store. The reason is simple, most of the users prefer to directly search their products on the store rather finding through filtering or navigating the products. A good search should be quick, making a better shopping experience and less frustrating to the customers. The search functionality allows the user to find what they require without any fuss.

It is not just limited to improving the user experience but also helps in a better conversion rate and also reduces abandoned cart rates. When a user searches for a product, he is more likely to purchase in comparison to that user who navigates for a product. With the right search service, businesses can also learn more about what customers want by what they’re searching for, information that can inform future business decisions.

According to Builtwith, Magento is the leader in ecommerce platforms. However, with many of the astonishing features on these platforms, the search feature is not something that is up to its mark. In fact, the default search feature isn’t always best for stores, especially those with many products. E.g. the default search of Magento comes with little ways of modifying search results like whether you want to search for like terms or full-text terms, or a combination of both. That’s about the extent of the out-of-the-box Magento search function.

Learn More: How To Optimize Magento 2 Speed?

That’s why many ecommerce owners now prefer to go for third party extensions for integrating better search services. These 3rd party extensions come with many benefits. Some of those are:

• Relevancy: The search results are relevant to the searched term
• Misspellings: Can handle the erroneous spellings and will show the results accordingly right spelling
• AutoComplete: Will provide proper suggestions for a faster search
• Synonyms: Can provide results for similar words such as if a search for “ear buds” then the user will also get results for “ear phones”
• Speed: Provide a faster way of search

The above- mentioned benefits of search extensions can greatly enhance the user experience of customers and will increase your conversion rate and sales. In this article, we are going to jot down the best Magento and Shopify search extensions that you can use for your ecommerce store.

Let’s begin with the Magento search extensions first…

Best Magento Search Extensions:

1. Instant Search+

Instant Search+ is a highly advanced search box extension which is highly comprehensive for Magento ecommerce stores. It is very appropriate for those Magento ecommerce stores which want to display less than 250 products on their site. You can easily add a search box on your Magento site using this extension. It is a cloud-based search extension and also supports CDN (Content Delivery Network).

It has features of autocomplete and “Did you mean?” The result page is also highly responsive and this extension also analyzes the user search behavior for better performance. It is compatible with Magento 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 versions.

Pricing: InstantSearch+ is FREE for stores with up to 250 products/searches and offers paid subscriptions for larger stores. There is a 30 day trial period where you can experience all of Instant Search + premium features. For additional information regarding account and pricing, contact InstantSearch+

2. Ajax Search AutoComplete

If you want to enhance the UI of standard search results on your store, then Ajax search would be the perfect option for you. Using the Ajax search extension you can control the view of thumbnails and images of products on the search results page. It also improves the default search box of Magento 2 and provides quick search results without page refresh or load. You can set the Ajax search by the following product’s attributes: SKU, description, shape, price, status, manufacture, meta keywords. That way you will help your customers to find what they are looking for, much faster.

It shows search results in both left and right columns. It also enhances the look of the search box with a nice thumbnail image of the product for a better UI experience. This extension also supports cross-browser compatibility. It is easy to install and also helps you control the CSS files.

Pricing: The price of the extension is $39.

3. Easy Filter

Powered by Synamen Thinklabs, Easy Filter search extension resolves one of the most vital issues of Magento stores UI. It simplifies the product attributes to display and represents it in a neat UI format. When there are a lot of product attributes, the length of the page get kilometers long, and the user finds it quite difficult to look for his item. It offers attribute values in layered navigation. If you have several options in product filters, this plugin will display only five of the filter options and provide a scrollbar to find the remaining filters, also there will be a search box where you can search for filter options by typing their names. It also comes with scroll bar functionality for attributes having more than 5 values.

Pricing: It is available for both Magento 1 and Magento 2 and is free of cost.

Also Read: A quick review of Magento eCommerce Platform

4. Quick Search

The Quick search extension, powered by Extension Hut, has a USP of autocomplete feature. When the visitors have little or no idea what they require then this extension can add autocomplete to the search feature. It comes with autosuggest and relevant keywords.

The results of the search are not limited to only products, but it comes with a global search functionality where the search can be made through CMS pages and store categories. The highly customizable options make this search extension much better. You can also set the number of results to show, product thumbnail or description to show, set height and width for thumbnails, etc. It doesn’t affect the default functionality of the Magento search.
Pricing: The price of the Quick Search extension is $49.

Also Read: How to Hire a Magento Developer?

5. Ultimate Sphinx Search

Ultimate Sphinx Search comes among the most advanced searching extensions for Magento 2. Powered by the unique search engine Sphinx, the Ultimate Sphinx search can come with a great number of relevant search results in a fraction of seconds. It starts finding results from the very letter you enter for the search box. The customers can search for product categories, tags, SKUs, and much more.

You will surprise to know its searching speed; it can search 500 queries per second against 1,000,000 SKUs. The results are perfect for any language. It also supports stop-words, synonyms, automatic correction of typing errors, searching with hyphens or slashes, and responsive themes. Stemming with singular/plural words is also supported. It employs Ajax for quicker results.

Pricing: This extension can support only Magento 2.2 version and comes with a reasonable cost of $249.

6. Klevu Search

Klevu Search is an AI-based search extension which boasts of converting every search into a sales conversion. It uses Natural Language Processing, advanced semantic search, merchandising, and multilingual support. It is a self-learning search with automated catalog enrichment. There are dynamic filters that are highly customizable.

Klevu Search is an AI-based search, so it can learn from the experience. When the number of searches arises in the store, the search extension becomes smarter and comes up with better results. It is 100% cloud-hosted, CDN backed and secure backups. The extension is free of cost but you will require a separate Klevu account to use the extension on your Magento site.

Pricing: Klevu subscription starts at $199/month. There is a 14-day free trial to experience the Klevu search features.

7. Findify Search & Autocomplete

Another AI-based search solution on our list. Findify Magento search extension is a super-smart, AI-based search engine. It is a self-learning solution and also suggests proper search results based on user behavior. Findify search has proven to increase the revenue by up to 30% through A/B testing. So, you can sit calm as you know installing this extension will give you results. It also caters to the mobile-based search. It has robust analytic capabilities, thus you can monitor the search activities on your site using Findify analytics.

There are features like pinning, synonyms, banners, style customization, and much more. It also has filtering options, breadcrumbs, sorting, etc.

Pricing: You can get a 14 days free trial. After that, there are different versions among which you can choose such as Lite (Free), Essential, Power kit, and Enterprise.

8. Algolia Instant Search

The Algolia Instant search extension by Algolia supports any Magento 1 store. It comes with a desirable speed of producing results within just 10ms and increases customer engagement on your website.

Some of the main features of the Algolia instant search are autocompleting, responsive SERP, and typo error tolerance. You can easily set up Algolia to your Magento store within minutes and start delivering a delightful search to your users.

Pricing: Algolia Instant Search for Magento is FREE, but you do need an Algolia account to use the extension. However, the plan of the Algolia account is $29/month.

9. Google Custom Search

Last but not least, Google Custom Search helps you in improving the SEO of your Magento store. It will make your site more search engine friendly. It is easy to install and can work with any template. Smooth user experience is an important factor that Google uses to rank Magento stores. It can work with core search functionality as well as can be used in a multi-store environment. Google Custom Search lets you include a search engine on your website to help your visitors find the information they’re looking for.

It uses Google search algorithms and reduces the bouncing rate on your ecommerce store. It also displays synonyms and different combinations of searched keywords with right/correct keywords for wrong/incorrect ones.

Pricing: The cost of the extension is $35.99

Also Read: 15+ Best Magento 2 extensions for Business Growth

Wrapping Up

This list is to guide for choosing the best Magento search extension which suitable your custom requirements. There are many similar features in these extensions such as autocomplete, typo error tolerance, synonyms, speed, AI-based, etc. But there is always some USP of an extension which makes a deciding factor. E.g. in Findify Search there is search analytics making it different from others. Looking for a Magento search extension for your store, this article covers all.

At Emizentech, we are an expert in delivering highly user-friend ecommerce applications in Magento which can meet all your custom requirements. We wish your customers happy searching! Want to know better solutions for your Magento store, then don’t hesitate to reach us.