By default, Search facets use WordPress core search. WordPress core search is pretty limited: it searches the post title, excerpt, and post content, but nothing else.

For more flexibility, you can use FacetWP’s SearchWP (built-in) or Relevanssi (with add-on) integration. Both plugins let you search other data (custom fields, taxonomy terms, PDF content, etc) too. They each offer many settings and add-ons to make search results more relevant.

FacetWP displays the search results by using the post IDs returned by WP core search, or by SearchWP or Relevanssi if you are using their engine in the Search facet’s settings.

FacetWP itself does not influence the returned search results in any way. This means that if you see unexpected search results, the first place to look is the SearchWP or Relevanssi settings.

There is one exception to this: for performance reasons, FacetWP limits the number of returned results, which in some cases can lead to missing posts in the search results.

For example, when using the “WP Default” search engine, a Search facet will use WordPress core search, which returns a maximum of 200 results. These results include all post types that are searchable. This can cause the 200 returned posts to not include all posts in the current category and/or results of other facet filters in your listing.

So if you are missing posts in the results that you know should be there, the first thing to try is customize or remove the post limit. The exact limit depends on the chosen search engine. For all engines, it can be removed or customized:

Search engine Default post limit
WP Default 200 Remove or customize
SearchWP 200 Remove or customize
Relevanssi 500 Remove or customize

See also

Last updated: April 24, 2026