Better Search · Version history
Better Search changelog and version history
- Latest version
- 4.5.4
- Nov 3, 2026 (6 days ago)
- Releases
- 73
- since 2009
- In the last year
- 17
- about one every 21 days
- Tested up to
- WordPress 7.1.4
- PHP 7.4 or later
Releases each year
- 20098 releases
- 20111 release
- 20121 release
- 20133 releases
- 20145 releases
- 20153 releases
- 20171 release
- 20181 release
- 20196 releases
- 20203 releases
- 20214 releases
- 20221 release
- 20234 releases
- 20246 releases
- 202510 releases
- 202616 releases
202616 releases
Better Search 4.5.4Latest
- Release date: 3 November 2026
- Security
- Hardened post status handling in search queries.
Better Search 4.5.3
- Release date: 1 November 2026
- Added
- [Pro] List of posts that failed to index in Tools, with a Retry button. WP-CLI reindexing now exits with an error when any post fails.
- Changed
- Replaced the layout table in the search results header with a CSS Grid, so screen readers no longer announce it as a data table. Custom CSS targeting its table, tr or td elements needs updating.
- Security
- Restricted the post_type search parameter to searchable post types, so revisions of draft, private and password-protected posts, and internal content such as menu items, no longer appeared in front-end search results.
- Excluded attachments of unpublished posts and of post types visitors cannot view from search results, and attachments of password-protected posts when “Exclude password protected posts” was enabled.
- [Pro] Applied the same rules to the LIKE fallback and Did You Mean auto-correct, which had returned revisions, these attachments and, to logged-in users, password-protected posts.
- Fixed
- On attachment pages, and in search results that included an attachment, posts without a featured image used that attachment as their thumbnail.
- Attachment searches served from the cache returned no results.
Better Search 4.5.2
- Release date: 15 October 2026
- Security
- Prevented thumbnail fallbacks from using images inside or attached to password-protected posts before the password was entered.
- Hardened thumbnail URLs to reject unsafe protocols.
- Fixed
- Malformed custom thumbnail dimensions caused PHP errors during image-size selection.
Better Search 4.5.1
- Release date: 12 October 2026
- Added
- [Pro] Ask AI in theme search forms, plus model settings for AI answers with a Compare models window.
- Changed
- Cached searches with no matches, refreshing them when posts changed.
- [Pro] Renamed ECSI to Efficient Content Storage and Indexing.
- [Pro] Reused cached AI answers for reworded questions until their source posts change.
- Updated Freemius SDK to the latest version.
- Fixed
- Searches raised a PHP 8.5 deprecation warning while loading stopwords.
Better Search 4.5.0
- Release date: 2 October 2026 Release post: https://webberzone.com/announcements/better-search-v4-5/
- Added
- WordPress Abilities API support for site searches, with an option to disable it in the Features tab.
- Status section in Tools showing database, index and cache health.
- Setting to restrict search results to selected terms.
- * wildcard support in filtered words, so spam* also blocked “spammer”.
- Translated titles and language-specific links in TranslatePress live-search suggestions.
- data-bsearch-live-search="off" form attribute, so forms with their own live search did not show a second list of suggestions.
- [Pro] Abilities for popular search terms, spelling suggestions and cache clearing.
- [Pro] Optional AI answers grounded in Better Search results, with source links, cached answers, usage limits and a Content gaps report.
- [Pro] WP-CLI commands for AI questions, answer-cache management and Content gaps.
- [Pro] Expanded Tools status with custom-table and AI-provider health.
- [Pro] Optional recency weighting, disabled by default; existing custom-table indexes required a one-time backfill from Tools.
- [Pro] Optional ranking weights for slug, metadata, author and comment matches.
- [Pro] Wildcard search redirects, so help* could match multiple search phrases.
- Changed
- Raised the minimum WordPress version to 6.9 for the Abilities API.
- Improved keyboard and screen reader access to settings and repeater controls.
- [Pro] Expanded include and exclude settings to all public taxonomies.
- [Pro] Improved custom-table search performance on large sites.
- [Pro] Moved the REST API search setting to the Features tab.
- Security
- Hardened thumbnail dimensions to prevent markup injection through custom image sizes.
- Fixed
- Cached search results could appear in the wrong language on WPML, Polylang and TranslatePress sites.
- Searches covering taxonomies, metadata, authors or comments could time out on large sites.
- Common words were not excluded on sites without a Better Search translation.
- Network search caches remained stale after settings changes or manual cache clearing, and nested queries could prevent caching.
- Cache-clearing confirmation and error messages were missing.
- Live search suggestions could reopen after pressing Escape or submitting the search.
Better Search 4.4.4
Better Search 4.4.3
Better Search 4.4.2
Better Search 4.4.1
Better Search 4.4.0
Better Search 4.3.2
Better Search 4.3.1
Better Search 4.3.0
Better Search 4.2.4
Better Search 4.2.3
Better Search 4.2.2
202510 releases
Better Search 4.2.1
Better Search 4.2.0
Better Search 4.1.5
Better Search 4.1.4
Better Search 4.1.3
Better Search 4.1.2
Better Search 4.1.1
Better Search 4.1.0
Better Search 4.0.5
Better Search 4.0.4
20246 releases
Better Search 4.0.3
Better Search 4.0.2
Better Search 4.0.1
Better Search 4.0.0
Better Search 3.3.1
Better Search 3.3.0
20234 releases
Better Search 3.2.2
Better Search 3.2.1
Better Search 3.2.0
Better Search 3.1.0
20221 release
Better Search 3.0.3
20214 releases
Better Search 3.0.2
Better Search 3.0.1
Better Search 3.0.0
Better Search 2.5.3
20203 releases
Better Search 2.5.2
Better Search 2.5.1
Better Search 2.5.0
20196 releases
Better Search 2.4.0
Better Search 2.3.0
Better Search 2.2.4
Better Search 2.2.3
Better Search 2.2.2
Better Search 2.2.1
20181 release
Better Search 2.2.0
20171 release
Better Search 2.1.1
20153 releases
Better Search 2.1.0
Better Search 2.0.1
Better Search 2.0.0
20145 releases
Better Search 1.3.6
Better Search 1.3.5
Better Search 1.3.4
Better Search 1.3.3
Better Search 1.3.2
20133 releases
Better Search 1.3.1
Better Search 1.3
Better Search 1.2
20121 release
Better Search 1.2.1
20111 release
Better Search 1.1.7
20098 releases
Better Search 1.1.6
Better Search 1.1.5
Better Search 1.1.4
Better Search 1.1.3
Better Search 1.1.2
Better Search 1.1.1
Better Search 1.1
Better Search 1.0
Questions about Better Search’s releases
What is the latest version of Better Search?
4.5.4, released on Nov 3, 2026 (6 days ago). It’s tested up to WordPress 7.1.4 and needs PHP 7.4 or later.
How often is Better Search updated?
17 releases in the last year, about one every 21 days. Its first release on WordPress.org dates from March 2009.
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Start freeRelease dates come from the day each version’s folder was made in Better Search’s WordPress.org SVN repository; the notes from its readme’s changelog, as its authors wrote it.