Changelog

Release Date - 8 July 2026

• Bug fixes:

  • Fixed phrase search: double-quoted terms (e.g. "WordPress" or "WordPress plugin") now always perform a phrase search by automatically enabling boolean mode when quoted terms are detected.
  • Fixed LIKE search stripping hyphens from compound terms (e.g. b-26 was incorrectly searched as b26). Internal hyphens are now preserved; only leading/trailing hyphens used as boolean operators are stripped.
  • [Pro] Fixed: short search terms (below the FULLTEXT minimum character threshold) now target the custom table columns (ct.title, ct.content, ct.excerpt) instead of wp_posts when custom tables are enabled. Previously the LIKE fallback always searched against wp_posts even with a fully indexed custom table.
  • Fixed SQL syntax error when search query contains only negative terms.
  • Fixed exclusion prefix handling and SQL precedence for negative search terms.

• Enhancements:

  • [Pro] Removed a redundant excerpt LIKE clause from search queries when the excerpt is already covered by the FULLTEXT MATCH clause, reducing unnecessary query overhead.
  • [Pro] The excerpt column is now only pulled into the FULLTEXT MATCH clause (native or custom tables) when the excerpt weight is greater than zero or "Search Excerpt" is explicitly enabled, instead of unconditionally.

Full Changelog: v4.3.0...v4.3.1