Do you want to redirect search results in WordPress to a specific page or a post?
Let’s say, when a visitor on your site searches for “Black Friday sale” two weeks before your promotion launches, they land on a results page full of last year’s posts. When someone types “return policy” and gets a blog post from three years ago instead of your actual Returns page, they leave.
These are costly moments, and they’re preventable. Sadly, there’s no built-in way to redirect search results in WordPress, so visitors land on whatever the default results page serves them.
That’s where SearchWP comes in. It includes a dedicated Redirects extension that lets you map specific search queries to exact URLs on your site, without writing a single line of code.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to redirect search results in WordPress to a specific page or post and how this can benefit your online business.
What are Search Redirects in WordPress?
A search redirect is a rule that intercepts a specific search query and sends the visitor to a URL you choose, instead of showing a results page.
When someone types a matching term into your search bar, they skip the results entirely and land directly on the destination page you set.
Think of it like a shortcut: a visitor searches “contact,” and instead of seeing a list of blog posts that happen to mention contacting customers, they land straight on your Contact page.
The best part? The setup requires no theme changes or code. Once a rule is active, matching queries bypass the results page entirely.
Why Redirect Search Results In WordPress?
Most site owners don’t think about search redirects until they notice a problem. Over the years, we’ve worked with many site owners who were losing visitors on high-intent searches simply because the results page wasn’t doing its job.
Here are the situations where redirects make the biggest difference:
- Discontinued products. When visitors search for something you no longer carry, they hit an empty results page and bounce. A redirect to an alternative product or a “this item is no longer available” page keeps the conversation going instead of ending it.
- Renamed or restructured pages. After a site reorganization, familiar search terms return results for the old version of content. A redirect maps legacy terms to the right location so the visitor always lands where you want them.
- Unreleased campaigns. A visitor searching for “summer sale” a week before your launch gets stale results. Redirect them to a “coming soon” page, and you build anticipation instead of confusion.
- High-intent brand queries. When visitors type your flagship product name or a key brand term into search, a landing page built for conversion beats a list of blog posts every time. Redirecting these queries turns intent into action.
- Support shortcuts. Common support queries like “refund” or “cancel” can be routed straight to the relevant help page, cutting down on support tickets before they’re submitted. We’ve seen this make a noticeable difference for sites that set it up.
With the right redirect rules in place, your search bar stops serving random results and starts guiding visitors exactly where they need to go. Now, let’s look at how to set it up with SearchWP.
How to Redirect Search Results Using SearchWP
The easiest way to redirect search results in WordPress is by using SearchWP. It is the best search plugin for WordPress, and it not only enables you to redirect searches but also enhances the native WordPress search capabilities.
SearchWP is the best WordPress search plugin on the market, trusted by 50,000+ website owners. It replaces WordPress’s default search with a powerful, fully customizable engine and gives you precise control over what your visitors find and where they land.
This is where SearchWP shines. It allows your website to perform in-depth searches across various content types, set specific search guidelines, and track search behavior to understand what your visitors are looking for.
Here are the features offered by SearchWP:
- Query-to-URL Redirect Rules: SearchWP’s Redirects extension lets you intercept any search query and send visitors to a specific page on your site. You can create as many rules as you need and set them up without writing any code.
- Partial Match Support: Toggle on partial matching for a rule, and SearchWP fires the redirect whenever any word from your saved query appears inside the visitor’s search, instead of requiring an exact match.
- Engine targeting: Scope a redirect to one specific search engine or apply it across every engine on your site, so the right rules fire in the right context.
- PDF and Office Documents Indexing: Makes document content searchable by parsing PDFs, Office documents, and plain (and rich) text documents.
- WooCommerce Integration: Automatically integrates with WooCommerce, enhancing search capabilities for product images and more.
- Keyword Stemming: Expands search flexibility by finding similar keywords, improving the comprehensiveness of search results.
- Multiple Search Engines: Allows the creation of custom search engines tailored for different content types, such as one specifically for images.
With that, let’s see how you can use SearchWP to redirect search results in WordPress.
Step 1: Install and Activate SearchWP
To get started, you need to visit the SearchWP website and sign up for a plan.
Once that’s done, go to your account dashboard and then head to the Downloads tab. From here, click Download SearchWP and save the ZIP file to your computer.
Remember to copy your license key from the same page; you will need it for activation.
Next, you can upload the plugin files to your WordPress site and install and activate SearchWP like any standard WordPress plugin.
Once activated, you will see the setup wizard. Simply click the “Start Onboarding Wizard” button and follow the on-screen instructions.
Now your website’s default search has been automatically replaced with SearchWP, and we are ready to redirect search results in WordPress to specific pages.
Step 2: Install the Redirects Extension
The next step is to install the Redirects extension in SearchWP. Do note that the Redirects extension is available on the Pro plan and above.
To start, from your WordPress dashboard, navigate to SearchWP » Extensions. On the extensions screen, you can find the Redirects extension in the list and click Install.
Once the extension activates, a Redirects tab appears in the SearchWP Settings navigation. You’re ready to start building redirect rules.
Step 3: Add a Search Redirect Rule
From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to SearchWP » Settings and click the Redirects tab. You’ll see the Redirects screen with an empty table ready for your first rule.
Go ahead and click Add New. A new row appears with four fields to fill in.
In the Query field, type the search term you want to intercept. For this example, type red sneakers and then enter /coming-soon/ in the Redirect URL field, as the path for the destination, and enable Partial Match.
If you want to match the exact query only, then you can leave the Partial Match toggle off. Besides that, leave the Engine(s) field empty so the rule applies to all engines on your site.
From there, click Save. SearchWP stores the rule, and it becomes active immediately.
Do remember that the Redirect field accepts relative URL paths only, not full URLs. Enter /contact/ rather than https://yoursite.com/contact/.
Pro Tip: The Partial Match toggle is useful when visitors might search for a variation of your query term. When enabled, SearchWP tokenizes both the stored term and the visitor’s query, then checks whether your term appears as a substring. Keep it off for precise queries like brand terms and use it selectively for broader ones.
You can also redirect search queries to specific blog posts by following a similar process. Just add the blog post slug in the Redirect URL field, and you’re done!
Step 4: See the Redirected Search Results in Action
To check if everything is working correctly, visit the front end of your website. Write one of the queries in the search form and press Enter or click the search button.
For example, let’s write down “red sneaker” and hit Enter for our case.
You’ll land on the redirected page instead of seeing the search results page.
Notice we still landed on the right page even though our search wasn’t an exact match. With Partial Match on, SearchWP redirects as soon as any word from your saved query, like “red”, shows up in what the visitor typed.
If your website lacks a good search form, you can learn how to create an advanced search form in this comprehensive tutorial.
Bonus: Track Redirect Performance With Statistics
The Redirects extension includes a built-in statistics tracker. To turn it on, scroll to the Settings & Tools section on the Redirects tab and toggle on Enable Statistics.
Once enabled, a Statistics section appears on the same page and logs every redirect that fires.
The table shows the Search Query, Redirect URL, Engine, Count, and Last Redirected date for each rule, so you can see which queries are being intercepted most often.
For a fuller picture of how visitors use your site’s search, our guide to finding the most searched product on your website is worth reading alongside this.
To clear the data, click Reset Statistics in the Settings & Tools section.
FAQs about Redirecting Search Results
1. Can I redirect partial search queries, not just exact terms?
Yes, the Redirects extension includes a Partial Match toggle on each rule. When enabled, SearchWP tokenizes both the stored query and the visitor’s search term, then checks whether your term appears as a substring of what they typed. Keep in mind that common stopwords may be stripped during tokenization, which can loosen the match. We recommend using exact match by default and enabling partial matching only where broader coverage is useful.
2. What happens if a visitor’s query matches more than one redirect rule?
The first rule in the list wins. SearchWP scans redirect rules in the order they appear in the Redirects table, so drag your most specific rules to the top and click Save to apply the new order.
3. Does redirecting a search query affect SEO?
Search redirects fire before any page output is sent, so visitors land on the destination page rather than a results page. These are HTTP 302 (temporary) redirects by default. They don’t pass SEO authority the way a 301 permanent redirect does, but since they only fire when someone actually runs a search (not on your normal, indexable pages) the effect on your page rankings is minimal.
4. Can I import or export my redirect rules?
Yes. Scroll to the Import/Export section inside Settings & Tools on the Redirects tab.
Paste a JSON export into the Import field and click Import Redirects to load rules from another site or a backup. Use the Export field to copy your current rules as JSON.
You now have a working search redirect configured on your WordPress site. SearchWP’s Redirects extension makes it straightforward to intercept any query and guide visitors exactly where you want them, without touching a line of code.
We hope this article helped you learn how to redirect search results in WordPress. You may also want to see our guides on how to optimize the WordPress search results page and how to customize the WordPress search results page.
Ready to take full control of your WordPress search? You can get started with SearchWP here.
