# Site search

The search box on your website, and the one switch that controls it.

Source: https://docs.lookoutridgeit.com/plugins/site-search/

Your website has a search box. Visitors type in it and find your pages. This
screen holds the one switch that turns it on and off.

## Where to find it

This one has no menu item of its own.

1. Go to **Admin**, then **Plugins**.
2. Find the row named `site-search`.
3. Click the gear icon at the end of that row.

The heading reads "site-search Settings". The [Plugins](https://docs.lookoutridgeit.com/admin/plugins/) page
explains the rest of that screen.

## The one switch

**Show site search** is on when your website is built. Leave it on and there is
nothing to do here.

**Warning**
There is no **Publish** step here. You click **Save Settings**, and the change
is on your live website right away.

## What visitors get

The search box sits in the slim bar above your header. It says **Search…**
until someone types. That bar is set up on the [Utility Bar](https://docs.lookoutridgeit.com/plugins/utility-bar/)
page, which decides where the search box goes.

Results start to appear while they type. Press Enter and the full search page
opens instead. On a phone, the search icon in the bar at the bottom opens that
same page.

## What can be found

Search looks through this content:

- your pages
- your services
- your service area pages
- your photo albums
- your team members
- your [branches](https://docs.lookoutridgeit.com/content/branches/), if you have any

Some websites have more. Products, food menus, projects, and blog posts are
searched too, on the sites that have them. On a site with a shop, the full
search page also lists matching product tags first.

Only published content is found. A draft is never in the results, and neither
is anything in the Trash. [Saving and
publishing](https://docs.lookoutridgeit.com/start-here/saving-and-publishing/) covers the difference.

## Turning it off

Search earns its keep on a website with a lot of pages. On a small website of
five or six pages, it can be more clutter than help.

Switch **Show site search** off and click **Save Settings**. Three things go
away at once:

- the search box in the header bar
- the search box in the footer
- the search box on the "page not found" screen
- the search box in the side rail of blog posts and projects

The full search page stops working too. A visitor who saved a link to it gets
the "page not found" screen.

Nothing is deleted. Your pages are all still there, and every menu link still
works. Switch it back on any time and the boxes come back.