Disable Search Plugin

This plugin prevents WordPress from allowing and handling any search requests from the front-end of the site. Specifically, this plugin:

• Prevents the search form from appearing if the theme uses the standard get_search_form() function to display the search form.
• Prevents the search form from appearing if the theme uses a searchform.php template
• Prevents the search item from appearing in the admin tool bar when shown on the front-end.
• Disables the search widget.
  • Removes the Search widget from the list of available widgets
  • 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)
• Disables the search block.
  • Removes the Search block from the list of available blocks
  • 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)
• 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.
• Submitted attempts at a search will be given a 404 File Not Found response, rendered by your site’s 404.php template, if present.
• Disables output of SearchAction in SEO schema by the Yoast SEO plugin.

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: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

1. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or install the plugin code inside the plugins directory for your site (typically /wp-content/plugins/).
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress

2.0.1 (2023-09-02)

• Change: Safeguard JS from throwing error if WP JS isn’t loaded (should be rare to never)
• Change: Note compatibility through WP 6.3+
• Change: Update copyright date (2023)
• Change: Tweak code alignment
• New: Add .gitignore file
• Unit tests:
  • Fix: Allow tests to run against current versions of WordPress
  • New: Add composer.json for PHPUnit Polyfill dependency
  • Change: Prevent PHP warnings due to missing core-related generated files

2.0 (2021-09-13)

Highlights:

• This release finally addresses disabling the search block, notes compatibility through WP 5.8+, and restructures unit test directories.

Details:

• New: Disable the search block
  • New: Add disable_core_search_block() to unregister block via PHP
  • New: Add enqueue_block_editor_assets() to register JS script to unregister search block via JS
  • New: Add JS script file to unregister search block
  • Change: Update documentation to reflect search block being disabled
• Change: Remove get_search_form() and simply use __return_empty_string() as callback to 'get_search_form' filter
• Change: Note compatibility through WP 5.8+
• Change: Tweak installation instruction
• Unit tests:
  • Change: Restructure unit test directories
    • Change: Move phpunit/ into tests/
    • Change: Move phpunit/bin into tests/
  • Change: Remove ‘test-‘ prefix from unit test file
  • Change: In bootstrap, store path to plugin file constant
  • Change: In bootstrap, add backcompat for PHPUnit pre-v6.0

1.8.3 (2021-05-01)

• Fix: Change __wakeup() method visibility from private to public to avoid warnings under PHP8
• Fix: Throw an error when attempting to unserialize an instance of the class to actually prevent it from happening

Full changelog is available in CHANGELOG.md.