Search Services

Local Search

Local search no need any external 3rd-party services and can be extra indexed by search engines. That search method recommended for most users.

Install hexo-generator-searchdb by run following command in site root dir:

$ npm install hexo-generator-searchdb --save

Edit site config file and add following content:

hexo/_config.yml

search:
  path: search.xml
  field: post
  format: html
  limit: 10000

Edit theme config file to enable Local Search:

next/_config.yml

# Local search
# Dependencies: https://github.com/theme-next/hexo-generator-searchdb
local_search:
  enable: false
  # if auto, trigger search by changing input
  # if manual, trigger search by pressing enter key or search button
  trigger: auto
  # show top n results per article, show all results by setting to -1
  top_n_per_article: 1
  # unescape html strings to the readable one
  unescape: false

Algolia Search

NexT provides Algolia search plugin for index your hexo website content. What you should note here is that only turn on enable of algolia_search in theme config file cannot let you use the algolia search correctly, you need to install corresponding Hexo Algolia plugin to seach your website with Algolia. Follow the steps described below to complete the installation of Algolia search.

Register at Algolia, you can log in directly using GitHub or Google Account. Upon Customer’s initial sign-up for an Account, Customer will have a free, fourteen (14) day evaluation period (the «Evaluation Period») for the Algolia Services commencing on the Effective Date, subject to the limitations on Algolia’s website. After that, Algolia offers a free, branded version for up to 10k records and 100k operations per month.

If a tutorial pops up, you can skip it. Go straight to create an Index which will be used later.
Go to the API Keys page and find your credentials. You will need the Application ID and the Search-only API key in the following sections. The Admin API key need to keep confidential. Never store your Admin API Key as apiKey in theme config file: it would give full control of your Algolia index to others and you don’t want to face the consequences.
In the API Keys page, click the ALL API KEYS and the edit option in the created APIKEY to activate a pop-up box where you can setup authorizations and restrictions with a great level of precision. Check Add records, Delete records, List indices, Delete index features in ACL permissions that will be allowed for the given API key. And then click the Update button.

In your site config file, add the following configuration and replace the applicationID & apiKey & indexName with corresponding fields obtained at Algolia.

hexo/_config.yml

algolia:
  applicationID: ‘Application ID’
  apiKey: ‘Search-only API key’
  indexName: ‘indexName’
  chunkSize: 5000

Algolia requires users to upload their search index data either manually or via provided APIs. Install and configure Hexo Algolia in your Hexo directory. This plugin will index your site and upload selected data to Algolia.
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$ cd hexo
$ npm install –save hexo-algolia

Run the following command to upload index data, keep a weather eye out the output of the command.

$ export HEXO_ALGOLIA_INDEXING_KEY=Search-Only API key # Use Git Bash
# set HEXO_ALGOLIA_INDEXING_KEY=Search-Only API key # Use Windows command line
$ hexo clean
$ hexo algolia

Change dir to NexT directory, and install module to source/lib directory.

1 2	$ cd themes/next $ git clone https://github.com/theme-next/theme-next-algolia-instant-search source/lib/algolia-instant-search

If you want to use the CDN instead of clone this repo, then need to set vendors in theme config file:

next/_config.yml

vendors:
  …
  # Internal version: 1
  # https://www.algolia.com
  algolia_instant_js: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/instantsearch.js@2.4.1/dist/instantsearch.js
  algolia_instant_css: https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/instantsearch.js@2.4.1/dist/instantsearch.min.css
  …

In theme config file, turn on enable of algolia_search. At the same time, you need to turn off other search plugins like Local Search. You can also adjust the text in labels according to your needs.

next/_config.yml

# Algolia Search
algolia_search:
  enable: true
  hits:
    per_page: 10
  labels:
    input_placeholder: Search for Posts
    hits_empty: “We didn’t find any results for the search: ${query}”
    hits_stats: “${hits} results found in ${time} ms”

Known Issues

The latest version of the Hexo-Algolia plugin removes the content indexing feature, given Algolia’s free account limitation.
The Hexo-Algoliasearch plugin provides content indexing functionality, but requires the replacement of keywords in the NexT theme. The same problem exists with Record Too Big for Algolia’s free account.
- Replace all applicationID in source/js/src/algolia-search.js with appId
- Replace all applicationID in layout/_partials/head/head.swig with appId

Swiftype Search

Go to Swiftype Sign Page to sign up.

After signing up create a new search engine and follow instructions.

After creating choose Integrate → Install Search in the menu to customize with instructions. Then click Active button finally.

Back to INSTALL CODE and copy your swiftype_key.

Edit theme config file and fill section swiftype_key with value of your key gets:

next/_config.yml

1 2	# Swiftype Search API Key swiftype_key: xxxxxxxxx