Title: Enterprise Search
Author: WordPress VIP Documentation
Published: March 5, 2021
Last modified: June 25, 2025

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#  Enterprise Search

Enterprise Search was developed by WordPress VIP to expand the usage of [Elasticsearch](https://docs.wpvip.com/elasticsearch/),
providing both a search solution and a performance-enhancing layer to existing [WordPress searches](https://docs.wpvip.com/wordpress-search/)
and queries.

[A fork of ElasticPress](https://github.com/Automattic/ElasticPress/blob/develop/README.md)
provides Elasticsearch indexing and search for Enterprise Search, and [a fork of es-wp-query](https://github.com/Automattic/es-wp-query)
provides query offloading capabilities via an Enterprise Search adapter.

Enterprise Search is [an Integration](https://docs.wpvip.com/integrations/) available
to all WordPress environments and can be activated in the VIP Dashboard. Enterprise
Search indexes and features can be managed with [VIP-CLI](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-cli/installing-vip-cli/).
[Search Dev Tools](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/dev-tools/) and the 
VIP-CLI [`health` command](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/check-index-health/)
are provided to assist with debugging and troubleshooting.

Enterprise Search can also be [enabled in a VIP Local Development Environment](https://docs.wpvip.com/local-development/local-enterprise-search/).

 * 
   ### 󠀁[Limitations of Enterprise Search](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/es-limitations/)󠁿
   
 * Enterprise Search can improve the performance of search results for a WordPress
   site, but limitations exist and default behaviors should be reviewed.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Activate Enterprise Search](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/enable/)󠁿
   
 * To fully enable Enterprise Search, the feature must be code-enabled then an Elasticsearch(
   ES) index for a site’s content is created using CLI commands.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Enable Enterprise Search features](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/enable-features/)󠁿
   
 * Enterprise Search features such as facets, related posts, terms, and more can
   be enabled per site with custom WP-CLI commands run with VIP-CLI.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Index with Enterprise Search](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/index/)󠁿
   
 * Indexing compiles a site’s content and inserts it into an Elasticsearch (ES) 
   index. Indexing can be triggered with a VIP-CLI command.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Version with Enterprise Search](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/version/)󠁿
   
 * Versioning makes it possible to perform a reindex of an Elasticsearch index and
   check the health of the new index before replacing the current index.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Check the index health](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/check-index-health/)󠁿
   
 * Use VIP-CLI to check if an index is in sync with a database, or to debug issues
   related to Enterprise Search.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Choose what to index](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/indexing/)󠁿
   
 * By default, Enterprise Search will index all public post types, their statuses
   and their public taxonomy terms. Use allow lists and indexables to selectively
   index additional post types, statuses, taxonomies, and post meta.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Offload a WP_Query to Enterprise Search](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/enable-non-search-queries/)󠁿
   
 * Enterprise Search automatically sends all standard front-end search queries to
   Elasticsearch. Non-standard queries can also be offloaded to Elasticsearch by
   adding custom code that modifies the behavior of WP_Query.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Search tokenization](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/search-tokenization/)󠁿
   
 * Tokenization applies a more sophisticated set of rules during a search, which
   eliminate the need for full-text search and also returns more relevant document
   results. The behavior of tokenization can be customized with filters.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Enable Enterprise Search for the WordPress Admin](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/enable-for-wp-admin/)󠁿
   
 * Enterprise Search can be optionally enabled for WordPress Admin dashboard queries
   using custom code and filters.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Debug with Enterprise Search Dev Tools](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/dev-tools/)󠁿
   
 * Enterprise Search has built-in Search Dev Tools that are useful for testing individual
   queries and debugging.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Enterprise Search on multisite](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/multisite/)󠁿
   
 * An Elasticsearch (ES) index must be created for each network site that will be
   using Enterprise Search for search queries.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Rate limiting in Enterprise Search](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/rate-limiting/)󠁿
   
 * Rate limiting of Enterprise Search can occur if too many of the same queries 
   are made directly to Elasticsearch (ES) rather than effectively utilizing caching.
 * 
   ### 󠀁[Customize search results](https://docs.wpvip.com/enterprise-search/customize-search-results/)󠁿
   
 * Customize the search results that are generated by Enterprise Search by configuring
   options such as sorting by date, relevancy, fuzziness, and more.

Last updated: June 25, 2025