[Support request] How to search only by Post Title?

[Miguel]

I see that by default, when I write something in the “Search Box”, the search process looks through the “Post Titles” and also the “Post Content” in order to show the search results.
Is there a way to get the search results based only on the “Post Titles” ??

Thanks in Advance,
Miguel

[Elvin]

Hi Miguel,

Will this search function have to be toggle-able or is it fine if the search function only searches based on Post titles?

If it has to be toggle-able then it’s best to get a search plugin that can do this for you and replace the default plugin with this PHP snippet.

add_filter( 'generate_navigation_search_output', function() {
    return sprintf(
        '<div class="navigation-search">%s</div>',
        do_shortcode( '[your-search-plugin-shortcode]' )
    );
} );

If you only want to change the search query to search through post titles only then try the snippet shared in this article – https://www.isitwp.com/limit-search-to-post-titles-only/

[Miguel]

Thank you Elvin for your reply,

I don’t need the search function to be toggle-able. I only need all the searches be based on Post titles. I really don’t want to use any 3rd party plugin, so that the overall website performance keeps unaffected.

Hopefully you can help me with the PHP snippet for this.

[Elvin]

If that’s the case then you can try the PHP snippet provided on the article I’ve linked which is this one:

function __search_by_title_only( $search, &$wp_query )
{
    global $wpdb;
 
    if ( empty( $search ) )
        return $search; // skip processing - no search term in query
 
    $q = $wp_query->query_vars;    
    $n = ! empty( $q['exact'] ) ? '' : '%';
 
    $search =
    $searchand = '';
 
    foreach ( (array) $q['search_terms'] as $term ) {
        $term = esc_sql( like_escape( $term ) );
        $search .= "{$searchand}($wpdb->posts.post_title LIKE '{$n}{$term}{$n}')";
        $searchand = ' AND ';
    }
 
    if ( ! empty( $search ) ) {
        $search = " AND ({$search}) ";
        if ( ! is_user_logged_in() )
            $search .= " AND ($wpdb->posts.post_password = '') ";
    }
 
    return $search;
}
add_filter( 'posts_search', '__search_by_title_only', 500, 2 );

Here’s how to add PHP snippets – https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-php/

[Miguel]

Hi Kevin, the PHP snippet you provide is working just like I need, filtering only by Post Title. But there is an Warning message caused by the PHP snippet. Below the message:

Warning __search_by_title_only(): Argument #2 ($wp_query) must be passed by reference, value given in wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 303

Thanks in advance for your help

[Elvin]

On the line function __search_by_title_only( $search, &$wp_query ) try replacing &$wp_query with $wp_query.

Let us know how it goes.

[Miguel]

Thank you very much for your kind help. Now all is working perfectly.

All the Best,
Miguel

[Elvin]

No problem. Glad to be of any help. 😀

[Author]

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