ACF Fields Indexer

Make your Advanced Custom Fields searchable by the native WordPress search engine without performance penalties.

🚀 Overview

By default, WordPress Native Search (?s=query) only looks at the post_title and post_content columns. It completely ignores metadata stored in wp_postmeta, which means data stored in ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) is not searchable.

Existing solutions usually involve:

1. Heavy SQL JOINs: Killing database performance.
2. External Indexes: Creating bloat and dependency (vendor lock-in).

ACF Fields Indexer solves this by injecting selected ACF values directly into the post_content inside a hidden HTML block. This makes the content instantly searchable by WordPress, REST API, and WP GraphQL with O(1) performance.

✨ Features

• Zero Frontend Bloat: No CSS or JS files added to your site.
• High Performance: Uses native WordPress tables. No heavy JOIN queries.
• Vendor Agnostic: Works with any theme, page builder (Elementor, Divi, Bricks), or Headless setup.
• Selective Indexing: You choose exactly which Post Types and Fields to index.
• Batch Processing: Includes a built-in tool to index thousands of existing posts in the background.
• Clean Data: Automatically removes old index data when you update settings.

🛠 Installation

1. Download the plugin folder acf-fields-indexer.
2. Upload it to your WordPress directory: /wp-content/plugins/.
3. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.

⚙️ Configuration

Go to Settings > ACF Indexer.

1. Target Post Types

Define which content types should be monitored. Enter the slugs separated by commas.

• Example: post, page, product, obra

2. ACF Fields to Index

Define which ACF field values should be searchable. Enter the Field Names (not labels) separated by commas.

• Example: isbn, sku, author_bio, release_year

3. Save Changes

Click "1. Save Settings".

♻️ Indexing Existing Content (Backfill)

If you have existing content created before installing this plugin, you need to run the Batch Indexer.

1. Go to Settings > ACF Indexer.
2. Scroll down to the Maintenance section.
3. Click "2. Start Batch Indexing".
4. Wait for the process to finish. The page will reload automatically processing 50 posts at a time.

Note: Whenever you add or remove a field from the configuration, you should run the Batch Indexer to update all posts with the new rules.

🧠 How it Works (Under the Hood)

When a post is saved (or processed via batch), the plugin:

1. Retrieves the values from the selected ACF fields.
2. Sanitizes the data (strips HTML tags).
3. Appends a hidden Gutenberg HTML block to the end of the post_content.

Example of injected code:

<div class="afi-search-index" style="display:none" aria-hidden="true">
    978-0-123-45678-9 Blue Hardcover 2024
</div>