How to Manage Blank Search Display in WordPress

Are you looking for a way to manage blank search display in WordPress? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to manage blank search display in WordPress.

By default, WordPress does not search for blank search bar queries. It redirects to the homepage for blank search. To prevent this, you can use pre_get_posts hook. You can use pre_get_posts action to manipulate the query variables for specific pages.

You can modify $wp_query object before any results are returned. In this example, we are using pre_get_posts before $wp_query returning false value.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

function make_blank_search ($query){
    global $wp_query;
    if (isset($_GET['s']) && $_GET['s']==''){  //if search parameter is blank, do not return false
        $wp_query->set('s',' ');
        $wp_query->is_search=true;
    }
    return $query;
}
add_action('pre_get_posts','make_blank_search');

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly add code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 9 best WordPress accordion plugins and how to set up download tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics.