Scott Reilly

This plugin prevents WordPress from allowing and handling any search requests from the front-end of the site. Specifically, this plugin:
<ul>
<li>Prevents the search form from appearing if the theme uses the standard <code>get_search_form()</code> function to display the search form.</li>
<li>Prevents the search form from appearing if the theme uses a <code>searchform.php</code> template</li>
<li>Prevents the search item from appearing in the admin tool bar when shown on the front-end.</li>
<li>Disables the search widget.
<ul>
<li>Removes the Search widget from the list of available widgets</li>
<li>Deactivates any search widgets currently in use in any sidebars (they are hidden, not deleted; they’ll reappear in their original locations if this plugin gets deactivated)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Disables the search block.
<ul>
<li>Removes the Search block from the list of available blocks</li>
<li>Deactivates any search blocks currently in use, such as in posts or as a widget (they are disabled, not deleted; they’ll reappear if this plugin gets deactivated and the associated placeholder block doesn’t get deleted)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>With or without a search form, the plugin prevents any direct or manual requests by visitors, via either GET or POST requests, from actually returning any search results.</li>
<li>Submitted attempts at a search will be given a 404 File Not Found response, rendered by your site’s 404.php template, if present.</li>
<li>Disables output of <code>SearchAction</code> in SEO schema by the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/" rel="ugc">Yoast SEO</a> plugin.</li>
</ul>
The plugin only affects search on the front-end of the site. It does not disable searching in the admin section of the site.
Links: <a href="https://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/disable-search/" rel="nofollow ugc">Plugin Homepage</a> | <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-search/" rel="ugc">Plugin Directory Page</a> | <a href="https://github.com/coffee2code/disable-search/" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a> | <a href="https://coffee2code.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Author Homepage</a>

Disable Search


In 2024, numerous bots are crawling sites, generating significant search spam. Generally, site search incurs high costs, primarily because we end up paying for CPU resources consumed by spam.



If site search is not crucial for your website, I recommend activating this plugin.



Thank you, Scott, for maintaining this simple yet effective plugin!


The most effective way to avoid search spam

Disable the built-in front-end search capabilities of WordPress.

WordPress has long provided inline documentation throughout the administrative interface that provide explanations for various features and input fields. This includes an explanations of excerpts, trackbacks, custom fields, page parents, etc. These are great for newcomers to WordPress, but for those with sufficient familiarity these bits of text are no longer necessary and merely provide visual noise. This plugin gets rid of those descriptive texts.
The plugin’s behavior is made available as a per-user profile option. Each user who wishes to enable expert mode for themselves must do so individually by going into their profile, checking the field ‘Expert mode’, and then pressing the ‘Update Profile’ button.
Specifically, this plugin removes:
<ul>
<li>
Dashboard
<ul>
<li>Description of “Welcome to WordPress!” panel</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Categories
<ul>
<li>Description of “Category Name”</li>
<li>Description of “Category Slug”</li>
<li>Description of “Category Parent”</li>
<li>Description of “Description”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Edit Post
<ul>
<li>Description of “Custom Fields”</li>
<li>Description of “Excerpts”</li>
<li>Description of “Trackbacks”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Edit Page
<ul>
<li>Description of comment status</li>
<li>Description of “Custom Fields”</li>
<li>Verbose descriptions of “Attributes” (parent, template, and order)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Edit Link
<ul>
<li>Description of “Name”</li>
<li>Description of “Web Address”</li>
<li>Description of “Description”</li>
<li>Description of “Target”</li>
<li>Description of “Link Relationships (XFN)”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Tags
<ul>
<li>Description of “Tag name”</li>
<li>Description of “Tag slug”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Widgets
<ul>
<li>Text indicating that widgets are added from the listing of widgets on the left.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Install Themes
<ul>
<li>Help text for search field</li>
<li>Help text for “Feature Filter”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Themes – Custom Header
<ul>
<li>Help text simply stating you can upload files from you computer</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Manage Plugins
<ul>
<li>Description of what plugins are and that they are activated/deactivated on that page</li>
<li>Text indicating that broken plugins can be renamed to remove them from being active</li>
<li>Description of the “Recently Active Plugins” section</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Add New Plugins
<ul>
<li>Help text for search field</li>
<li>Help text for “Popular Tags”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Users – Your Profile
<ul>
<li>Help text for “Biographical Info”</li>
<li>Help text for “Sessions”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Tools
<ul>
<li>Description paragraphs for “Press This”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Tools – Import
<ul>
<li>Description paragraph for “Import”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Tools – Export
<ul>
<li>Description paragraphs for “Export”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – General
<ul>
<li>Extra help text after input fields for “Tagline”, “Site Address (URL)”, “Email Address”, “Timezone”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – Writing
<ul>
<li>Label for “Update Services”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – Reading
<ul>
<li>Extra description for “Search engine visibility”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – Discussion
<ul>
<li>Description of what avatars are</li>
<li>Description of purpose of default avatar</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – Media
<ul>
<li>Text that explains sizes represent maximum dimensions in pixels of images uploaded to Media Library</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – Permalinks
<ul>
<li>Help text about “Common Settings”</li>
<li>Help text about “Optional”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Settings – Privacy
<ul>
<li>Paragraphs of text describing the Privacy Policy page</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
NOTE: This plugin does NOT remove input field labels or section headers, nor anything containing actual data. In a few cases, descriptive text is left intact when it is of enough importance to warrant retention, or the markup structure does not facilitate easy removal.
Links: <a href="https://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/admin-expert-mode/" rel="nofollow ugc">Plugin Homepage</a> | <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/admin-expert-mode/" rel="ugc">Plugin Directory Page</a> | <a href="https://github.com/coffee2code/admin-expert-mode/" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a> | <a href="https://coffee2code.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Author Homepage</a>
<h3>Developer Documentation</h3>
Developer documentation can be found in <a href="https://github.com/coffee2code/admin-expert-mode/blob/master/DEVELOPER-DOCS.md" rel="nofollow ugc">DEVELOPER-DOCS.md</a>. That documentation covers the hooks provided by the plugin.
As an overview, these are the hooks provided by the plugin:
<ul>
<li><code>c2c_admin_expert_mode</code> : Filter to dynamically determine whether the admin expert mode should be active.</li>
<li><code>c2c_admin_expert_mode_default</code> : Filter to customize whether admin expert mode should be active for users by default or not.</li>
</ul>

Admin Expert Mode

Excellent code as always from Scott Reilly. This has saved me so much time trying to trim down the Admin Interface. Thank you :)

Excellent Plugin

Allows users to hide inline documentation and help text that are geared for beginning users in the WordPress admin.

Disable Search vs Admin Expert Mode