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Slow search by product name and SKU problem

This topic has 22 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 1 week, 4 days ago ago by Nesa

Nesa

Participant

July 29, 2026 at 14:21

Hello,

we have noticed that the product search on our website is quite slow. When we enter a product name or SKU in the search field, the search results take approximately 7-10 seconds to appear.

The overall website performance is good. Other pages respond quickly, and opening individual product pages is relatively fast. The issue seems to be limited to the search functionality.

Could you please let us know if there is a way to optimize or speed up the search functionality? We would appreciate any recommendations or available solutions that could improve the search performance.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Best regards,

#472219 Copied

21 Answers

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 29, 2026 at 14:35

Hello, Nesa,

To improve this metric, we recommend navigating to the xstore->theme options->speed optimization-> “search results cache” and enabling this option.

Best Regards,
8Theme’s Team

#472223 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 29, 2026 at 14:47

Hi,

Could you please provide screenshots showing the navigation path to this location?

#472224 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 30, 2026 at 08:09

Hi,

I have configured it, but the search is still taking too long and keeps loading.

Please contact administrator
for this information.

#472244 Copied

Jack Richardson

Support staff

July 30, 2026 at 09:37

Hello @Nesa,

Could you kindly provide us with feedback once you have closed the header editor, as we see currently Ajax search setting is not enabled and also we are unable to check your settings

Best regards,
Jack Richardson
The 8Theme’s Team

#472253 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 30, 2026 at 09:50

Hi,

I have just enabled AJAX search. You can check it now.

Why are you unable to check it? Are the login credentials not correct?

#472255 Copied

Jack Richardson

Support staff

July 30, 2026 at 10:04

Hello @Nesa,

Thank you for activating the Ajax search feature. We have tested it and found that the search operates quickly without any delay or slow loading, as demonstrated in this link: https://gyazo.com/0dd2573e77d2a18b9354dd6e94345b57. Could you please provide us with a video of your testing or offer more information on how to replicate the 7-10 second loading time you are experiencing? It is possible that the issue may be related to a slow network connection.

Best regards,
Jack Richardson
The 8Theme’s Team

#472257 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 30, 2026 at 10:28

Hi,

Regarding the live search suggestions, they appear immediately. However, when I click “View All Results,” it also takes almost 10 seconds to load the complete search results page.

I have a large number of one term products, so it is not practical to browse through them using the live search suggestions. That is why I would prefer the standard search results page to load as quickly as possible.

Please note that all other functions, including page loading and opening individual product pages, perform very well and have a good response time.

#472261 Copied

Jack Richardson

Support staff

July 30, 2026 at 11:39

Hello @Nesa,

We have reviewed the issue and confirmed that this particular page is loading somewhat slower than others. This is due to the predefined operations on this page, as various conditions across WooCommerce, WordPress, and our theme are checking the is_search() function and executing certain code or modifying hooks/filters. Unfortunately, it is not possible to enhance the loading speed of this page. However, you may consider reaching out to your hosting support team, as they might be able to optimize some resources on this page or disable unnecessary scripts in the .htaccess template on the server.

Best regards,
Jack Richardson
The 8Theme’s Team

#472263 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 30, 2026 at 12:02

Hi,

This has been happening from the very beginning, even when the theme was freshly imported and there were no significant customizations.

Okay, I will contact my hosting provider and get back to you once I have more information.

Thank you for your assistance.

#472265 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 30, 2026 at 13:28

Hi,
I have just received a response from the hosting support team. They confirmed that there is nothing unusual happening on the hosting side.

I would like to point out once again that the slow search response has been present from the very beginning, ever since the theme was first imported.

Please contact administrator
for this information.

#472268 Copied

Jack Richardson

Support staff

July 30, 2026 at 14:55

Hello @Nesa,

We attempted to implement some improvements, but they did not significantly enhance the loading time. Our changes have been included in your child-theme/functions.php. Unfortunately, with our current settings or other built-in functionalities, it is not possible to speed up the loading time on such a page. However, you may consider creating a separate Search Results template. This template can contain only searchable products without a sidebar or other sections currently inherited from your Shop template, which may increase the loading time. For more information, please visit: https://www.8theme.com/documentation/xstore/xstore-builders/xstore-search-results-page-builder-with-elementor/

Best regards,
Jack Richardson
The 8Theme’s Team

#472275 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 30, 2026 at 17:59

Hi,

I’ll try using the Search Results template and let you know how it goes. In the meantime, is there an option in the theme to disable searching by SKU, and if so, where can I find it?

Second question, can I use some search plugin to solve this problem, and which one you would recommend?

#472280 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 31, 2026 at 07:48

Hi,

During debugging, we found a part of the XStore search functionality that could possibly be causing the performance issue, although we are not 100% certain and would appreciate your confirmation.

The code is located in:

php
/wp-content/themes/xstore/framework/theme-functions.php

The related function is:

php
etheme_search_all_sku_query()

which calls:

php
etheme_search_post_excerpt()

This function modifies the WooCommerce search query by adding additional search conditions, including:

* product title search (post_title)
* product excerpt search (post_excerpt)
* product content search (post_content)
* SKU search through wp_postmeta
* additional visibility and category checks
* variation product searches

We noticed that it generates queries using conditions like:

sql
meta_value LIKE ‘%search_term%’

for the _sku field, and:

sql
post_title LIKE ‘%search_term%’
post_excerpt LIKE ‘%search_term%’
post_content LIKE ‘%search_term%’

Because of the leading wildcard (%), these queries may require scanning many records and could potentially affect performance on larger WooCommerce stores.

We also noticed that this search filter may be applied not only to the main WooCommerce search query, but possibly to additional Elementor/XStore queries as well.

The current search time is around 10 seconds.

Could you please confirm whether this part of the XStore search functionality could be responsible for the slowdown and advise if there is a recommended optimization?

Possible solutions we would like your opinion on:

1. Restricting SKU search to run only on the main WooCommerce search query (is_main_query).
2. Optimizing the SKU search query for larger stores.
3. Using an indexed search solution if the default WordPress/WooCommerce search is not suitable for 10,000+ products.

We need SKU search functionality, so disabling it is not an option. Our goal is to keep SKU search while improving performance.

Thank you for your support and advice.

#472297 Copied

Jack Richardson

Support staff

July 31, 2026 at 08:12

Hello, Nesa

To ensure you get the best support, we’re escalating your request to another specialist from our team, who will take a closer look at the issue.

They will update you as soon as possible, and we’ll make sure to keep you posted. If you have any additional details that might help, feel free to reply here.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Best Regards,
The 8Theme Team

#472300 Copied

Nesa

Participant

July 31, 2026 at 13:45

Hello,

Thank you for escalating the request.

We appreciate your help and will wait for the specialist’s feedback.

#472305 Copied
Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

July 31, 2026 at 15:11
Hello, Nesa,

Thank you for the detailed information.

We would like to clarify that etheme_search_all_sku_query() applies only to product search queries. It does not affect the general WordPress search query across the whole website.

In this function, the query post type is limited to WooCommerce products:

php $post_types[] = 'product';

Also, product_variation is added only under specific theme settings, for example when variation search or detached variable products are enabled. So variations are not always included by default; this depends on the related search/product variation options.

However, even for queries that pertain exclusively to products, searching by SKU via wp_postmeta with a partial match may be slower in large WooCommerce stores, especially if there are many products, variations, and postmeta entries – but there’s nothing you can do about it; in any case, with a large number of products, the query will slow down.

Best regards,
The 8Theme Team
#472307 Copied
Nesa

Participant

July 31, 2026 at 16:42

Hello,
Of course, we have over 10,000 products. So, what do you suggest? Could a search plugin improve the situation? FiboSearch for example?

#472310 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

August 3, 2026 at 08:17

Hello, Nesa,

Even with the use of a third-party plugin, requests will still be slow and resource-intensive, as 10,000 is a large number to process in a single request. We recommend trying the FiboSearch plugin, but honestly, the requests will not be significantly reduced.

Best Regards,
8Theme’s Team

#472461 Copied

Nesa

Participant

August 3, 2026 at 08:31

Hi,
However, I would like to share an additional piece of information that may help identify the cause of the issue.

Our current live website uses the Techmarket theme, is hosted on the same server, and has the same number of products (approximately 10,000). On that website, searching by product name takes around 2 second, while on the XStore website, the same search takes 7–10 seconds.

For this reason, it seems there may be a difference in how XStore processes search requests or generates the search results page.

Our hosting provider has already checked the server and confirmed that there are no performance or resource-related issues.

Content is visible for topic creator and
support staff only.

#472462 Copied

Andrew Mitchell

Support staff

August 3, 2026 at 14:50

This occurs because the search function is being executed based on additional parameters such as SKU, and it searches not only within products but also within their variations. These additional parameters are what slow down the search process. You can disable them in the search settings.

Best regards,
8Theme’s Team

#472482 Copied

Nesa

Participant

August 3, 2026 at 14:55

Hi,

I would like to share the results of some additional testing.

In the XStore theme settings, I disabled the Search by SKU option and installed the Advanced Woo Search (AWS) plugin, which is now handling the product search.

After this change, the search results page loads in approximately **2 seconds**, which is a significant improvement compared to the previous performance.

Based on the tests I performed, it appears that when Search by SKU is enabled in XStore, it interferes with the product name search. As a result, additional queries related to SKU values are executed even when searching by product name, which significantly increases the overall search time.

Once Search by SKU was disabled and AWS took over the search functionality, the search results became noticeably faster, with no performance issues observed.

I hope this information may be useful for your further analysis and optimization of the XStore search functionality.

Kind regards,

#472483 Copied
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Slow search by product name and SKU problem

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