Highlight Search Terms
by RavanH 5 (40 reviews)

Highlight Search Terms

Very lightweight (vanilla) Javascript that wraps search terms in an HTML5 mark tag within WordPress search results.

Tested up to WP 6.5 (Current: 6.9)
v1.8.3 Current Version v1.8.3
Updated 1 year ago Last Update on 04 Apr, 2024
Synced 13 hours ago Last Synced on
Rank
#2,760
-2 this week
Active Installs
7K+
No change
KW Avg Position
3
No change
Downloads
177K
+8 today
Support Resolved
0%
No change
Rating
100%
Review 5 out of 5
5 (40 reviews)

Next Milestone 8K

Total Progress 50.4%
7K+ 8K+
104
Ranks to Climb
-
Growth Needed
8,000,000
Active Installs
Pro

Unlock Exact Install Count

See the precise estimated active installs for this plugin, calculated from real-time ranking data.

  • Exact install estimates within tiers
  • Track install growth over time
  • Milestone progress predictions
Upgrade to Pro
Need 496 more installs to reach 8K+

Rank Changes

2,619 2,690 2,762 2,833 2,904 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
2,752 2,757 2,762 2,767 2,772 06-01-2026 07-01-2026 08-01-2026 09-01-2026 10-01-2026 11-01-2026 12-01-2026 13-01-2026 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
2,752 2,760 2,769 2,777 2,785 22-12-2025 23-12-2025 24-12-2025 25-12-2025 26-12-2025 27-12-2025 28-12-2025 29-12-2025 30-12-2025 31-12-2025 01-01-2026 02-01-2026 03-01-2026 04-01-2026 05-01-2026 06-01-2026 07-01-2026 08-01-2026 09-01-2026 10-01-2026 11-01-2026 12-01-2026 13-01-2026 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
2,752 2,760 2,769 2,777 2,785 23-10-2025 24-10-2025 25-10-2025 26-10-2025 27-10-2025 28-10-2025 29-10-2025 30-10-2025 31-10-2025 01-11-2025 02-11-2025 03-11-2025 04-11-2025 05-11-2025 06-11-2025 07-11-2025 08-11-2025 09-11-2025 10-11-2025 11-11-2025 12-11-2025 13-11-2025 14-11-2025 15-11-2025 16-11-2025 17-11-2025 18-11-2025 19-11-2025 20-11-2025 21-11-2025 22-11-2025 23-11-2025 24-11-2025 25-11-2025 26-11-2025 27-11-2025 28-11-2025 29-11-2025 30-11-2025 01-12-2025 02-12-2025 03-12-2025 04-12-2025 05-12-2025 06-12-2025 07-12-2025 08-12-2025 09-12-2025 10-12-2025 11-12-2025 12-12-2025 13-12-2025 14-12-2025 15-12-2025 16-12-2025 17-12-2025 18-12-2025 19-12-2025 20-12-2025 21-12-2025 22-12-2025 23-12-2025 24-12-2025 25-12-2025 26-12-2025 27-12-2025 28-12-2025 29-12-2025 30-12-2025 31-12-2025 01-01-2026 02-01-2026 03-01-2026 04-01-2026 05-01-2026 06-01-2026 07-01-2026 08-01-2026 09-01-2026 10-01-2026 11-01-2026 12-01-2026 13-01-2026 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
Current #2,760
Change
Best #

Upgrade to Pro

Unlock 30-day and 90-day rank history charts with a Pro subscription.

Upgrade Now

Active Installs Growth

Active Installs 0,000,000+
Growth +0.0%
Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

0 10 20 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
0 10 20 06-01-2026 07-01-2026 08-01-2026 09-01-2026 10-01-2026 11-01-2026 12-01-2026 13-01-2026 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
0 10 20 22-12-2025 23-12-2025 24-12-2025 25-12-2025 26-12-2025 27-12-2025 28-12-2025 29-12-2025 30-12-2025 31-12-2025 01-01-2026 02-01-2026 03-01-2026 04-01-2026 05-01-2026 06-01-2026 07-01-2026 08-01-2026 09-01-2026 10-01-2026 11-01-2026 12-01-2026 13-01-2026 14-01-2026 15-01-2026 16-01-2026 17-01-2026 18-01-2026 19-01-2026 20-01-2026 21-01-2026
0 10 20 30 40 50 23-10-2025 26-10-2025 29-10-2025 01-11-2025 04-11-2025 07-11-2025 10-11-2025 13-11-2025 16-11-2025 19-11-2025 22-11-2025 25-11-2025 28-11-2025 01-12-2025 04-12-2025 07-12-2025 10-12-2025 13-12-2025 16-12-2025 19-12-2025 22-12-2025 25-12-2025 28-12-2025 31-12-2025 03-01-2026 06-01-2026 09-01-2026 12-01-2026 15-01-2026 18-01-2026 21-01-2026
0 50 100 150 200 250 21-01-2025 02-02-2025 14-02-2025 26-02-2025 10-03-2025 22-03-2025 03-04-2025 15-04-2025 27-04-2025 09-05-2025 21-05-2025 02-06-2025 14-06-2025 26-06-2025 08-07-2025 20-07-2025 01-08-2025 13-08-2025 25-08-2025 06-09-2025 18-09-2025 30-09-2025 12-10-2025 24-10-2025 05-11-2025 17-11-2025 29-11-2025 11-12-2025 23-12-2025 04-01-2026 16-01-2026 21-01-2026
Downloads
Growth
Peak

Upgrade to Pro

Unlock 30-day, 90-day, and yearly download history charts with a Pro subscription.

Upgrade Now

Reviews & Ratings

5.0
40 reviews
Overall 100%
5
39 (98%)
4
1 (3%)
3
0 (0%)
2
0 (0%)
1
0 (0%)

Tracked Keywords

Showing 1 of 1
Keyword Position Change Type Updated
hilite 3 Tag 14 hours ago

Unlock Keyword Analytics

Track keyword rankings, search positions, and discover new ranking opportunities with a Pro subscription.

  • Full keyword position tracking
  • Historical ranking data
  • Competitor keyword analysis
Upgrade to Pro

Track This Plugin

Get detailed analytics, keyword tracking, and position alerts delivered to your inbox.

Start Tracking Free

Plugin Details

Version
1.8.3
Last Updated
Apr 04, 2024
Requires WP
3.7+
Tested Up To
6.5
PHP Version
5.6 or higher
Author
RavanH

Support & Rating

Rating
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
Reviews
40
Support Threads
0
Resolved
0%

Keywords

Upgrade to Pro

Unlock keyword rankings, search positions, and detailed analytics with a Pro subscription.

Upgrade Now

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Highlight Search Terms

Upload (and overwrite) the /highlight-search-terms/ folder and its content to the /plugins/ folder. Activate plugin on the Plug-ins page II. In most up to date themes (including WP's own Default theme) post and page content is shown inside an ARTICLE element or DIV with class hentry. This is recognized by the hilite script, which means search terms found in post and page content will be highlighted but not similar terms that coincidentally reside in the page header, menu, sidebar or footer. If your current theme does not use these common designations (yet), this plugin will look for some other possible tags like #content, MAIN, #wrapper (which might include the header, sidebar and footer areas) and finally the BODY. If this causes issues on your theme, see the last of the FAQ's for ways to make it work. III. Optionally add at least one new rule to your themes stylesheet or the Custom CSS editor to style highlightable text. For example use .hilite { background:#D3E18A; } to get a moss green background on search terms found in the content section (not header, sidebar or footer; assuming your Theme uses a div with class "hentry"). Please find more examples in the FAQ's below. I do not see any highlighting! This plugin has no configuration options page and there is no predefined highlight styling. For any highlighting to become visible in browsers that do not support HTML5 like Internet Explorer 8 or older, you have to complete step III of the installation process. Edit your themes stylesheet (style.css) or the WordPress theme customizer Custom CSS tab to contain a rule that will give you exactly the styling that fits your theme. If that's not the issue, then you might be experiencing a bug or plugin/theme conflict. Time to get some Support :)
Go in your WP admin section to Appearance > Customize > Custom CSS and add one of the examples below to get you started. For a moss green background highlighting: .hilite { background-color: #D3E18A; } Yellow background highlighting: .hilite { background-color: yellow; } A light blue background with bold font: .hilite { background-color: #9CD4FF; font-weight: bold; } Orange background with black font: .hilite { background-color:#FFCA61; color: #000000; } Please give me more advanced CSS examples If you want to give different terms used in a search phrase a different styling, use the class "term-N" where N is a number starting with 0, increasing 1 with each additional search term, to define your CSS rules. The below example will make every instance of any term used in the query show up in bold text and a yellow background except for any instance of a second, third and fourth term which will have respectively a light green, light blue and orange background. /* Default highlighting, but bold text. */ .hilite { background-color: yellow; font-weight: bold; } /* Moss green highlighting for second search term only. */ .term-1 { background-color: #D3E18A; } /* Light blue highlighting for third search term only. */ .term-2 { background-color: #9CD4FF; } /* Orange highlighting for fourth search term only. */ .term-3 { background-color:#FFCA61 } Keep in mind that for the first search term the additional class "term-0" is used, not "term-1"! Terms outside my post/page content get highlighted too The script will search through your page source code for viable sections that usually contain page or post content, most commonly used in WordPress themes. Like ARTICLE or a DIV with class "hentry". If that is not available, the script will look for other commonly used divs like #content, #main, #wrapper. However, in your particular theme, none of these divs might be available... Let's suppose your theme's index.php or single.php has no <div <?php post_class() ?> ... > but wraps the post/page content in a <div id="someid" class="someclass"> ... </div>. This will not be recognized by the script as a post/page content container and the script will default to highlighting starting with the BODY element. This will result in terms getting highlighted in the header, menu, sidebar and footer too. You can do one of three things to solve this: A. Change your theme templates like single.php, page.pho and search.php so the post/page content div has a class "hentry" (you can append it to existing classes with a space like class="someclass hentry"). B. Add a filter in your theme's functions.php (or a seperate plugin file) like this: add_filter( 'hlst_selectors', function( $selectors ) { // custom theme selectors (change and append as needed) $my_selectors = array( 'div.someclass' ); return $my_selectors + (array) $selectors; } ); C. Switch to a theme that does abide by the current WordPress conventions :)

Sign In / Register

You need to sign in or register to use this feature.