Top 4 free search extensions every Joomla user should know

If you are thinking about creating a content rich Joomla website or already own such a site, it would be necessary for your site to have a robust set of search extensions that will allow your users to access your fantastic content. Now because of popularity of Joomla, there are hundreds of such extensions available on the internet that you can use, however most of them are either paid or are not that efficient. Also finding the right plugin out of hundreds can be a tough option. Therefore here we present to you a list of top 5 search extensions that every Joomla user should know to make a fantastic website.

PixSearch Ajax Search module

PixSearch Ajax module is one of the most used Search extensions of Joomla and as the name suggests is made using Ajax JavaScript. Inspired by the search feature of Apple.com, this extension is a great option for performing in-site search of a keyword or related data. The module performs an in-depth Ajax search in the backend of the Joomla website using. The best feature of this module is that it displays the related result instantly, right underneath the search input box.

TorTags

The first step in making your content search engine friendly is by adding tags to the content, and TorTag is just the extension for that. TorTag can be used either as a module, or a plugin, or as a component and can be utilized to add multiple tags to all other components using the editor field. It can not only add tags to the native Joomla content component, but also other external component extensions such as JoomShopping, MarketPlace, JEvents, VirtueMart etc. TorTag extension can add tags anywhere in the content, i.e. you can add tags anywhere in the top, bottom or even center of the content.

RokAjaxSearch

Fast, reliable, and powerful, RokAjaxSearch is a great search extension for your Joomla site. It also uses Ajax coding to fetch real time data directly from the backend as well as Google Search. The module also gives you the option integrate it with the Google Search to give results of Google web search as well. The best feature of this extension is that it allows you to display data from multiple sources i.e. you can display data from your own site as well as the search data of Google Search.

JiFiles

JiFiles is an innovative extension that allows users to search different formats of text and data files such as docs, PDFs, excel sheets, power point presentations, text files, HTML, and XML files. This tool is especially useful for information and academic sites that have lots of downloadable text content. The best feature about this extension is that it not only searches the tags and website descriptions, but also searches the content of the stored files as well.

Conclusion

Combined use of one or two of these plugins will not only make your site user-friendly but also provide a great boost to your search engine rankings. Thus these tools have an added advantage in the field of SEO also. All the plugins that are discussed above are free to download and use and are at least compatible with the latest version of Joomla 2.5.x, but some are even compatible with Joomla 3.x series also.