SearchCue: AI Site Search & Answers

SearchCue adds real-time, typo-tolerant search to WordPress, with semantic matching for natural-language searches and optional cited AI answers grounded in your indexed site content.

Compatibility

The clean-install matrix covers WordPress 6.0 through 7.0 and PHP 7.4 through 8.5. It tests the PHP 7.4 floor on WordPress 6.0, every PHP 8 minor, and the available PHP 8.2 and 8.5 boundaries on WordPress 7.0 with debugging enabled.

SearchCue crawls your public pages and supported documents, then builds and serves the search index from its own servers. It does not build a search index in your WordPress database. Connect with an email magic link, and SearchCue can work with your theme’s existing search input, the built-in floating search launcher, or any link to /search.

What you get

• Real-time, typo-tolerant results that appear as visitors type
• Optional cited AI answers generated from your indexed site content, with links to the sources used
• Semantic matching that can find relevant pages even when a query uses different wording
• Search across pages, PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and other supported documents
• OCR and image understanding that can make image content discoverable when useful text is missing
• Search lenses for including or excluding URL paths and serving the right content for different site sections or language paths
• Built-in search analytics showing popular terms, clicks, and searches that returned no results
• A hosted design editor for adapting the search interface without changing the plugin
• Optional automatic content-update notifications when public pages, posts, custom post types, or attachments change

Works beyond WordPress

The same SearchCue account can also provide search for Webflow, Shopify, Squarespace, and hand-built sites.

Hosted service disclosure

SearchCue is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product operated by DoNoHarm – Bauer & Eide GbR. This plugin connects your site to SearchCue, which crawls or receives public content, hosts the search index, and serves visitor searches and optional AI answers. A SearchCue account is required. The plugin does not provide search locally without the hosted service.

By connecting a site, an administrator agrees to the SearchCue terms and acknowledges the privacy policy:

• Service: https://searchcue.com/
• Terms and Conditions: https://searchcue.com/terms/
• Privacy Policy: https://donoharm.world/privacy-policy/searchcue/

Pricing

The WordPress plugin is free and licensed under the GPL. The hosted SearchCue service offers a 15-day free trial with no credit card. Continued use after the free trial requires a paid subscription. Plans currently start at €9 per month and include an AI answer allowance. Administrators can set a hard monthly AI budget; when it is reached, SearchCue can fall back to keyword results at no additional AI cost. Continuing AI answers beyond the included allowance is optional. See the current SearchCue pricing and plan limits.

External services

SearchCue is a hosted site search and optional cited AI answer service. The plugin makes these external requests:

• Setup and admin analytics: When an administrator submits the connection form, the plugin sends the email address, site URL, WordPress admin return URL, and a random setup state to https://central.searchcue.com. It later exchanges a one-time handoff token there and uses the assigned API key to retrieve site search analytics.
• Automatic content updates: While Automatic updates is enabled, the plugin sends the site hostname, an IndexNow verification key, and changed public URLs to https://central.searchcue.com so SearchCue can refresh the index. Administrators can disable this in SearchCue settings.
• Visitor search: After the site is connected, public pages load executable code from https://searchcue.com/search-embed.js. That embed contacts https://central.searchcue.com and https://edge.searchcue.com to load settings, perform searches, and record visitor search terms, originating page paths, whether searches returned results, clicked result paths, and search performance and outcome metrics. If cited answers are enabled, visitor questions and relevant indexed excerpts are sent to SearchCue for cited answer generation.

Admin interface fonts are bundled with the plugin under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and do not make external requests. The font license texts are included with the font files.

Like other web requests, these connections disclose network information such as the requester IP address and browser user agent. SearchCue uses the data to provide, secure, maintain, troubleshoot, and improve the service and to show search analytics to the site administrator. Site administrators are responsible for providing any visitor privacy notices and obtaining any consent required for their site.

Use of the service is governed by the SearchCue Terms and Conditions. Data handling is described in the SearchCue Privacy Policy.