Biwem Search Autocomplete — Smart Search for WooCommerce

Biwem Search Autocomplete brings real-time, intelligent autocomplete suggestions to your WooCommerce store. Visitors find what they’re looking for in seconds — even if they misspell, abbreviate, or only know the SKU.

The plugin is built around four ideas:

1. Speed. Suggestions appear as the visitor types, with multi-level caching that keeps response times low even on shared hosting.
2. Forgiveness. Built-in fuzzy matching catches typos and missing letters automatically. Searching “trapno” still finds the trapano.
3. Smart matching. Beyond plain titles, the plugin also matches product SKUs and EAN/GTIN codes, so warehouse and B2B users find products by code instantly.
4. Compatibility. Works with any theme, any WooCommerce setup, any cache plugin. No assumptions about your stack.

What’s included

• Real-time autocomplete suggestions in the search box
• Configurable number of product / post / page suggestions per query (you choose how many)
• Multilingual smart fuzzy matching — automatic typo recovery in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and German (handles missing letters, swapped letters, vowel substitution)
• Automatic accent normalization — café/über/straße/niño/français all matched without typing the accents
• SKU and EAN/GTIN exact match (a customer who knows the code finds the product immediately)
• Multi-content search — products, blog posts, and pages in a single dropdown (toggle each independently)
• Product thumbnails in the dropdown
• Product price display with regular/sale formatting (uses WooCommerce currency settings)
• Loading indicator while suggestions are fetched
• Out-of-stock filter — hide unavailable products from suggestions
• Multi-level caching (in-memory + 10-minute transient) for fast responses
• Translation-ready (compatible with WPML, Polylang and Loco Translate)
• 5 bundled admin languages out of the box: English, Italian, Spanish, French, German
• Works with any theme — no required modifications
• Drop-in shortcode [wcsa_search_autocomplete] with 4 design styles

Privacy-first by design

This plugin makes zero external calls. Everything runs on your own server. No data is sent anywhere — ever.

• No phone-home updates. Updates come from WordPress.org.
• No usage tracking. No statistics, analytics, or telemetry are collected.
• No GeoIP lookup. The plugin does not look up your visitors’ country.

The plugin is fully GDPR-friendly.

Pro version

A separate Pro version with advanced features is available at https://www.biwem.it/autocomplete. Pro features include:

• SHORTINIT fast search engine (sub-50ms response times)
• Real-time AI chat for natural-language product discovery
• Synonyms management
• Search analytics with visit logs and CSV export
• Custom colors and styling (admin color picker + 6 presets)
• External search suggestions (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo proxies — opt-in)
• Configurable thumbnail size
• Category labels and breadcrumb in dropdown
• Focus mode on desktop (full-screen search overlay)

The Pro version is distributed exclusively from biwem.it as a separate plugin (it is not hosted on WordPress.org). The Free version on WordPress.org remains fully functional and free forever.

External services

This plugin does not connect to, send data to, or rely on any external services. All functionality runs entirely on your own server:

• Product search and SKU/EAN lookups are processed locally via WordPress’s own database. No third-party APIs are involved.
• The plugin’s REST endpoint /wp-json/wcsa/v1/suggestions is internal — it is served by your own WordPress installation, on your own domain, and is called only by the front-end autocomplete script running in the visitor’s browser.

No analytics, no telemetry, no tracking, no remote calls of any kind.

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New.
2. Search for “Biwem Search Autocomplete”.
3. Click Install Now, then Activate.
4. The plugin starts working immediately on your default WooCommerce search box. No configuration needed.

Manual installation

1. Download the plugin ZIP file from the WordPress.org plugin page.
2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin in your WordPress admin.
3. Select the ZIP file and click Install Now, then Activate.

Configuration

After activation, go to Autocomplete → General Settings to fine-tune:

• Search scope (which content types to include: products, blog posts, pages)
• Minimum query length and debounce delay
• Display options (thumbnails, prices, loading indicator)
• Out-of-stock filter
• Mobile focus mode
• Shortcode search bar style (Default / Minimal / Rounded / Bold)

1. 

   Real-time autocomplete in action — the dropdown appears as the visitor types, with instant suggestions.

2. 

   Admin General Settings — search configuration, display options, post type toggles.

3. 

   Dashboard — plugin status, search scope summary, WooCommerce detection.

4. 

   Biwem Pro promotional page — overview of the Pro version (available separately at biwem.it).

5. 

   Shortcode search bar styles — Default, Minimal, Rounded, Bold variants.

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1.0.5

• UI: removed the thin divider line between autocomplete suggestions for a cleaner, more uniform dropdown.

1.0.4

• Theme-proof search bar: the plugin’s own search bar (the [wcsa_search_autocomplete] shortcode) is now rendered inside a Shadow DOM, so its appearance is isolated from the active theme’s styles and stays consistent across themes — present or future.
• When the search bar style is enabled, autocomplete suggestions now appear on BOTH the plugin’s own bar AND the theme’s native search bars (previously these two modes were mutually exclusive).
• New “Search placeholder text” option in the Searchbar style card: set the placeholder text shown inside the search box. It applies to all search bars and works even when the style toggle is off.
• The optional mobile fullscreen focus mode now works on the theme-proof bar as well.
• Fixed: the admin “shortcode not detected” warning now also scans theme header builders (e.g. Woodmart) and other option-stored locations, so it recognizes the shortcode wherever it is placed and updates promptly when you add or remove it.

1.0.3

• Hardened the suggestion cache against abuse: very long search terms and an excessive number of brand-new terms per day are no longer written to the persistent cache, preventing unnecessary database growth from automated or malicious queries. Normal searches are unaffected.

1.0.2

• The number of suggestions shown in the dropdown is now fully configurable with no maximum cap — set any value you like from the “Results to show” setting.
• Removed all references that framed the suggestion count as a limited or upgrade-only feature.
• Documentation and readme updated accordingly.

1.0.0

First public release on the WordPress.org plugin directory.

Core search engine

• Real-time autocomplete with a configurable number of internal product / post / page suggestions per query.
• Multilingual smart fuzzy matching for typo tolerance — “trapno” still finds “trapano”, “drll” finds “drill”, “prceuse” finds “perceuse”. Works in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and German.
• Automatic accent normalization — searches like “cafe” find “café”, “uber” finds “über”, “strasse” finds “straße”, no need to type the accents.
• SKU and EAN/GTIN exact match — type a code, get the exact product.
• Multi-content search: products, blog posts, and pages can each be toggled on or off independently.
• Multi-level caching layer (in-memory + 10-minute transient) for fast responses.

Display & dropdown

• Product thumbnails in the dropdown.
• Product price display with regular/sale price formatting (uses WooCommerce currency settings).
• Loading indicator option in the dropdown.
• Out-of-stock filter — hide unavailable products from suggestions.

Shortcode search bar ([wcsa_search_autocomplete])

• Drop-in shortcode that renders the plugin’s own search bar instead of relying on the theme’s.
• 4 built-in design styles: Default, Minimal, Rounded, Bold — pick from the admin.

Mobile experience

• Optional fullscreen focus mode on mobile (tap the search bar to expand to fullscreen for a better typing experience).

Admin experience

• Clean 3-page admin interface: Dashboard, General Settings, Biwem Pro (info).
• 5 admin languages bundled: English, Italian, Spanish, French, German.
• Translation-ready (WPML, Polylang, Loco Translate compatible).

Privacy

• Zero external calls — all processing is local.
• Clean uninstall: removes only the plugin’s own option and transients. No leftovers.