The AI search index is a short description of each item on your site. ExactFind reads it to work out which articles fit a question, then loads only those articles to write the answer.
What's in an entry
When you build the index, your indexing model reads each item and writes:
- A one-line summary of what it covers.
- Keywords, the specific terms it uses.
- Visitor phrases, the way people might ask for it, including words the item doesn't use.
What gets indexed
| Indexed | Not indexed |
|---|---|
| Published posts and pages | Drafts and private items |
| Custom post types you've chosen, with ExactFind Knowledge | Password-protected items |
| Documents you've added, with ExactFind Knowledge | Documents you haven't added |
| Anything you've excluded | |
| Items with no text |
What ExactFind reads
ExactFind reads each item the way a logged-out visitor sees it. Blocks are shown and shortcodes are run, so text a shortcode prints, such as a price, is read. Content that's only shown to logged-in users is never indexed.
Some content is always left out, because it adds nothing useful to an answer:
- Forms, such as Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WPForms, Formidable, Ninja Forms, Fluent Forms and Mailchimp for WP.
- Embeds, video, audio, playlists and galleries.
- ExactFind's own search box and block.
- Scripts, styles, iframes and images drawn in code.
A shortcode from a plugin that isn't active stays as plain text, such as [old_shortcode].
The same text is used when an article is loaded to answer a question, so answers see what the index sees. To leave out other shortcodes, see How to Exclude Pages From AI Search in WordPress.
ExactFind Search 0.2.6 and earlier removed every shortcode instead. If you've updated, rebuild the index so your entries pick up the new text. Most entries will show as changed, so review them before you publish.
Documents
A long document gets one entry, with a one-line summary for each of its sections.
Why use an index
Sending every article with every question would be slow and expensive. The index is much smaller, and ExactFind then loads up to three full articles for each answer. Answers come from those articles, not from the entry.
What it costs
Each item is sent to your AI provider once, when it's new or changed. Later builds skip anything that hasn't changed. Reading the index on each question uses tokens too, so a larger index costs more per question.
How big it can get
The Index page warns you if the live index gets large. Sites past about 1,000 items need a search tool, which ExactFind doesn't have yet.
Nothing is live until you publish
New entries start as drafts. You review them and publish the index, and only then do visitors' answers use them.