How to Edit the WooCommerce Search Page

If you’ve tried to adjust your WooCommerce search page, you’ve probably noticed there’s no obvious way to control it.

That’s because WooCommerce doesn’t provide a dedicated interface for editing search results. Instead, search behavior and layout are handled by your WordPress theme, along with WooCommerce templates and hooks.

As a result, customizing search can feel more complicated than expected.

What Can Be Changed on the Search Page?

Improving your search experience usually involves more than just design tweaks. Several elements work together to determine how search results appear.

Common areas store owners want to improve include:

• Controlling the product fields that get searched
• The layout and structure of results for easier browsing
• The product details displayed (images, prices, ratings, etc.)
• Filtering and sorting options
• Messaging when no results are found
• Performance on larger catalogs
• Mobile usability

Depending on your goals, you may need to adjust both how search looks and how it works behind the scenes.

Why WooCommerce Search Is Difficult to Edit

WooCommerce relies heavily on WordPress’s default search system. That system wasn’t built specifically for eCommerce, so it lacks fine-grained controls.

Out of the box:

• You can’t easily control what data is included in search
• There’s no built-in way to redesign the search results page
• Relevance and ranking are limited
• Performance optimizations are minimal

Because of this, meaningful customization usually requires going beyond default settings.

Your Options for Customizing Search Results

There are three primary ways to change how WooCommerce search behaves and appears: editing code, using a page builder, or installing a search-focused plugin.

Option 1: Editing Templates and Queries

One approach is to customize your theme’s search templates or adjust queries directly. This might involve:

• Modifying the search.php file
• Creating WooCommerce template overrides
• Adding custom functions to alter search results

While this gives you complete control, it also introduces challenges:

• Changes can break with WooCommerce, theme, or plugin updates
• Poorly optimized queries can slow down your site
• Ongoing maintenance becomes necessary

For most store owners, this route simply isn’t practical.

Option 2: Using a Page Builder

If your main goal is to improve layout and presentation, a compatible page builder can help.

Tools like Breakdance allow you to visually adjust:

• Product grids and spacing
• Typography and styling
• Overall layout of search results

This makes it much easier to refine the look of your search page without writing code.

However, page builders don’t typically affect how search works. They won’t give you control over:

• Which fields are searchable
• How results are ranked
• Search performance or indexing

So while they’re useful for design, they don’t solve deeper search limitations.

Option 3: Using a Dedicated Search Plugin

For most stores, the most effective solution is to use a plugin built specifically for WooCommerce product search.

These plugins go beyond visual changes and give you control over the entire search experience.

With the right solution, you can:

• Choose exactly what data is searchable (titles, descriptions, SKUs, attributes, categories, tags, custom fields, and more)
• Improve performance for faster results, even on large catalogs
• Display real-time, dynamic search results as users type
• Customize the layout of results and product previews

For example, the Elevated Product Search for WooCommerce plugin offers multiple options for modifying the search experience. To start with, it gives you complete control over which fields are searched, including custom fields. It provides fuzzy matching and allows you to adjust the match strictness. It also provides filters that let you include or exclude products based on their categories or tags.

All of this is provided in the Advanced Options section shown here:

Elevated Product Search also lets you control the layout and appearance of the results page, including basic settings, the results area, and product previews:

To assist you in your design efforts, it also includes a real-time Preview section, as shown above on the right.

These controls allow you to manage the exact appearance of your search results:

The plugin also handles typos, misspellings, singular and plural variations, and related terms and synonyms.

Bringing It All Together

Customizing the WooCommerce search page isn’t just about changing how it looks—it’s about improving how customers find products.

While code customization offers full control, it requires ongoing maintenance. Page builders simplify design changes but don’t address search logic.

For most store owners, a dedicated search plugin strikes the best balance. It provides both flexibility and ease of use, allowing you to improve relevance, performance, and presentation without needing custom development. Elevated Product Search is an excellent example of this type of plugin.

For other plugins, see our article, Best WooCommerce Product Search Plugins.