SmartMatch Search keeps the normal WordPress search results intact and surfaces
the most semantically relevant post(s) on top as a "Best match" suggestion.
Search that understands intent
Classic WordPress search matches keywords: when the words in the query do not
literally appear in a post, the visitor gets "nothing found" — even when your
site has exactly the right page. SmartMatch Search judges meaning instead, so
visitors can search the way they actually talk:
- "page where I can find my orders" surfaces your Order history page,
even though none of those words appear in its title.
- "how do I get my money back" finds your Returns & refunds policy —
no overlap in wording needed.
- "wo finde ich meine rechnung" (German) still lands on your Invoices
page: the model matches meaning across languages, so visitors searching in
their own language get the right result.
- "cancel my subscription" surfaces Manage your membership, instead of
every post that happens to contain the word "cancel".
- "what time are you open on saturday" finds your Contact & visiting
information page.
And it filters as well as it finds: a query like "burst viewer" will not match
a post just because the word "burst" appears somewhere — only posts that are
genuinely about the topic are suggested. The native results stay untouched
below the suggestion, so search never gets worse, only better.
Why SmartMatch Search connects to Burst
The Burst Statistics integration exists for two reasons:
- Real visitors only. Every AI search is a paid model call, so you only
want to spend it on real people. Burst already knows which visits are
validated human visits — its tracking filters out bots, crawlers and spam
before a visit is recorded, in both cookie and cookieless mode. SmartMatch
Search runs the AI only for those validated visits; bots silently get the
normal search results at zero AI cost.
- Searches land in your statistics. Searches run through the normal
WordPress search request, so they show up directly in Burst's Engagement
tab. You see what visitors are looking for — and where your content falls
short — in the same dashboard you already use.
How it works
SmartMatch Search is a thin integration layer between two plugins:
- AI (
WordPress\AI) — supplies the configured provider and text model.
Provider/model selection is delegated entirely to the AI plugin via
WordPress\AI\get_ai_service() and the wpai_preferred_text_models filter.
- Burst Statistics / Burst Pro — supplies visit validation. The AI search
only runs for a validated Burst visit (a uid with a recorded hit in the
last 30 minutes), which excludes bots. Works in both cookie mode
(
burst_uid cookie) and cookieless mode (session fingerprint).
How it works on a search request (
?s=...):
- The visitor must be a validated Burst visit, otherwise the native results
are shown untouched.
- Public, published posts of public post types are collected (title +
excerpt, capped, freshest first) and sent to the model with the search
term.
- The model returns only the genuinely relevant post IDs, ranked.
- Those posts are merged into the main query's result array itself (via the
the_posts filter): prepended above the native matches, de-duplicated, and
optionally tagged with a configurable badge (via the_title). Because the
change happens at the data layer, placement does not depend on how the theme
renders the loop — it works the same for classic templates and block themes.
When the native search found nothing, the suggestions become the results so
the page is not empty.
- Results are cached per search term (transient), invalidated when the
candidate set changes. Suggestions appear on the first results page only.
If the AI is unavailable, errors, or finds nothing relevant, nothing is added
and the normal results (or "nothing found") are displayed as usual.
- Install and activate the "AI" plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/ai/)
and configure a provider with valid credentials in its settings.
- Install and activate Burst Statistics (free) or Burst Pro.
- Install and activate SmartMatch Search.
- Optionally adjust the settings under Statistics → Settings → SmartMatch
Search (daily search budget, badge, prompt customization).
That is all: your search form and results template keep working as before,
and the AI suggestion appears on top of the results for validated human
visits.