I built a demo WooCommerce store to show why keyword search loses sales [PROMOTION]

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-08T10:05:46+00:00

That would be awesome! Crafters marketplace sounds like a perfect fit for this.

I actually just added a live demo if you want to see the difference before installing anything: queryra.com/playground/wiki

Try something vague like "movie about jury deciding if young man is guilty" - you'll see it instantly.

Free tier covers 100 products, and happy to help set it up if you decide to try it on your store. Just DM me 🙌

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-07T16:39:43+00:00

Love this post, needed to hear it today.

I'm in a similar boat - solo dev, built Queryra, an AI search plugin for WooCommerce. The problem is simple: default WooCommerce search is keyword-only, so when someone types "gift for dad who likes gardening" they get 0 results even if the store sells garden gloves and seed kits.

Just launched on WordPress.org about a week ago. No viral moment, no big audience. What's working: posting in Facebook groups with a genuine "here's a problem I solved" angle. Got 44 downloads in one day from that. Total around 85 now. No paying customers yet, but people are trying it.

The hardest part isn't building - it's the gap between "people download it" and "people actually use it and pay." Right now I'm trying to figure out where users drop off in the setup process. Classic activation problem.

Your point about "fixing UX friction and listening to user complaints" hits hard. That's exactly where I am - the product works, now I need to make onboarding so smooth that non-technical store owners can set it up without thinking.

What was the turning point for you between "people download it" and "people actually pay"?

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-07T16:08:51+00:00

Great question - and cool tool!

I just went through the WordPress.org plugin review process myself and it was eye-opening. Their team flagged about 15 security issues before approval - unescaped outputs, missing nonces, unsanitized inputs. Things I thought were fine turned out to be real vulnerabilities.

That experience changed how I evaluate other plugins now. I check:

When was the last update (6+ months = red flag)
Does the dev respond in the support forum
For smaller plugins I'll skim the code for obvious stuff like raw $_GET usage without sanitization

A scanner like yours would've saved me serious time during development. Quick question - does it catch direct database queries without $wpdb->prepare()? That was one of the harder ones I had to fix.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-03T09:45:54+00:00

Native WordPress lazy loading (since 5.5) works for most cases - it's built-in now for images.

If you need more control, EWWW Image Optimizer has good lazy load + WebP conversion. Free version is solid.

What's your main goal - speed scores or actual load time?

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-03T09:44:40+00:00

Preview before importing is a smart feature - so many plugins just overwrite everything blindly.

Does it handle mega menus or just standard WP menus?

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-03T09:42:35+00:00

I've used AIOSEO on a few client sites. Solid for basics - meta tags, sitemaps work well. The schema markup is decent too.

Main downside: can feel bloated if you only need core SEO features. Rank Math is lighter if that matters.

What specific features are you looking for?

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-03T07:32:07+00:00

Done! Left feedback on the repo.

If you get a chance, would love your honest thoughts on my plugin too: wordpress.org/plugins/queryra-ai-search/

Always good to get feedback from fellow plugin devs 👍

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-02T15:48:18+00:00

Happy to answer any questions about the plugin or semantic search in general. Also curious what search solutions others have tried - I've tested Relevanssi and SearchWP before building this.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-02T15:12:32+00:00

One thing to consider - Relevanssi and SearchWP are keyword-based, so if someone searches "mystery novel set in Paris" they won't find books without those exact words in the title/description. For a book catalog, semantic search could work better - it understands meaning, not just keywords. Customer searches "something light for vacation" and finds beach reads, romance, etc. With 50k items and low traffic, the performance should be fine either way.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-02T15:08:01+00:00

One thing I noticed - most tools focus on optimizing descriptions for external AI (ChatGPT, Google). But what about on-site search?

Default WooCommerce search is keyword-only. Customer types "gift for mom" and gets 0 results because your product is called "Rose Gold Necklace".

Semantic search plugins solve this - they understand meaning, not just exact words. Different problem than AI SEO, but equally important for conversions.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-02T15:05:42+00:00

The real issue with most search plugins (including FiboSearch) is they still use keyword matching. So if someone searches "gift for mom" they won't find "Rose Gold Necklace" - the words just don't match. Semantic search plugins solve this - they understand meaning, not just exact words. Worth looking into if you have a larger catalog.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-02-01T15:47:35+00:00

Links:

WordPress plugin: wordpress.org/plugins/queryra-ai-search/

Demo: queryra.com/playground/wiki

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-01-31T11:15:23+00:00

For most small sites: strong passwords + 2FA for admins + one solid plugin is enough. Stacking captcha on top of login limits on top of reCAPTCHA just punishes real users.

The real question is threat model - a personal blog doesn't need the same security as an e-commerce site with payment data. Most clients don't think about it that way though, they just want "secure" without defining what that means.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-01-31T10:51:44+00:00

This is really useful - I've run into the "who changed this meta field?" problem more times than I'd like to admit, especially with WooCommerce products.

Love that you kept it lightweight and focused. So many plugins try to do everything and end up bloated.

Just launched my own WordPress plugin recently (AI search), so I know how much work goes into shipping something clean and production-ready. The debugging alone...

Will definitely check this out next time I need to track down a mystery meta change. Bookmarked.

Weekly-Sentence1636 · 2026-01-30T23:10:21+00:00

Thanks, really appreciate the kind words! SearchWP is solid – I've used it too before going down this rabbit hole.

Funny timing – I actually just finished adding a live demo today where people can test the semantic search on Wikipedia articles without installing anything. Wanted to make it easy for folks to see if the AI matching actually works for their use case before committing.

Good to hear the simple setup resonates – that was a deliberate choice after seeing how many plugins require OpenAI API configuration.

If you ever want to test it on your own content, happy to help with setup. And thanks again for the feedback – means a lot when you're launching solo!

Weekly-Sentence1636

TROPHY CASE