Framer site search lets visitors find content across your pages and CMS collections from a single search box. Framer does not ship a full built-in search engine, so you add search using a plugin from the marketplace or a custom code component connected to a search service. For most sites, a marketplace search plugin is the fastest, cleanest path.
When Your Framer Site Needs Search
Not every site needs a search feature. A five-page marketing site usually does fine with clear navigation. Search earns its place once your content grows past the point where menus and links can surface everything quickly.
- Blogs and content hubs: Once you have dozens of articles, visitors expect a search box to jump straight to a topic.
- Documentation sites: Users arrive with a specific question and want to find the exact page fast.
- Large CMS-driven sites: Product catalogs, directories, and resource libraries become unusable without search.
- Help centers: Search is the primary way people self-serve support answers.
If your site is smaller, invest in strong navigation and internal linking first. Our website navigation design guide covers how to make content findable without search. Add search when the content volume genuinely warrants it.
Three Ways to Add Search to a Framer Site
There is no single search button to flip on, but you have three reliable approaches, ranging from no-code to fully custom.
Option 1: A Marketplace Search Plugin
The simplest route is a search plugin from the Framer marketplace. These plugins are built specifically for Framer, often index your pages and CMS automatically, and drop a working search component onto your canvas with minimal setup. For most blogs and content sites, this is the right choice.
To find one, browse the Framer marketplace, search for site search, and review the available plugins. Check our roundup of the best Framer plugins for current recommendations. After installing, you typically configure which pages or collections to index, style the search box to match your design, and publish.
Option 2: A Third-Party Search Service via Custom Code
For larger or more demanding sites, connect a dedicated search service through a custom code component. Services like Algolia provide fast, typo-tolerant search with relevance ranking and analytics. You index your content with the service, then build a Framer code component that queries its API and renders results.
This route gives you the most control over relevance, filtering, and result design, but it requires development work and usually a paid plan with the search provider. Learn how custom code components work in our Framer code components guide.
Option 3: A Lightweight Embedded Search Widget
Some hosted search widgets provide an embeddable script you can drop into Framer via the custom code embed. These sit between a plugin and a full service integration. They are quick to add, but they may have less native styling control and can add third-party script weight, so test their performance impact before relying on one.
How to Add a Search Plugin: Step by Step
Here is the typical flow for the most common approach, a marketplace search plugin.
- Open the marketplace. Inside your Framer project, open the plugins or marketplace panel and search for a site search plugin.
- Install the plugin. Add it to your project. It becomes available as a component or panel.
- Configure indexing. Tell the plugin which pages and CMS collections to include in search results.
- Place the search component. Drag the search box onto your header, a dedicated search page, or a modal triggered by an icon.
- Style it. Match the input, dropdown, and results to your brand using Framer’s styling controls.
- Test thoroughly. Search for known terms, misspellings, and edge cases. Confirm results link to the right pages.
- Publish. Push the site live and verify search works on the production URL, not just preview.
Designing a Good Search Experience
Adding search is only half the job. A poor search experience frustrates visitors more than no search at all. Keep these principles in mind.
Make the Search Box Obvious
Place search where users expect it, typically the top right of the header. A magnifying glass icon that expands into an input is a familiar pattern. On content-heavy sites, a persistent search bar is even better.
Show Results Fast and Clearly
Instant or as-you-type results feel responsive and modern. Each result should show a clear title, a short snippet, and ideally the section it belongs to, so users can judge relevance at a glance.
Handle Empty States Gracefully
When a search returns nothing, do not leave a blank box. Suggest popular pages, offer spelling tips, or point to your main navigation. A thoughtful empty state keeps visitors moving. See our empty state design guide for patterns that work.
Make It Keyboard Friendly
Let users navigate results with arrow keys and submit with Enter. A keyboard shortcut to open search, common on documentation sites, is a nice touch for power users.
Performance and SEO Considerations
Search features can add weight and complexity, so handle them carefully.
- Watch script weight. Third-party search widgets load external scripts. Test the impact on load time and keep your Core Web Vitals healthy.
- Index thoughtfully. Only include pages that should appear in results. Excluding utility pages keeps results clean.
- Do not rely on search for SEO. Search engines crawl your links, not your internal search. Keep strong internal linking regardless of whether you add search.
- Consider a results page URL. A dedicated search results page can be useful, but ensure it is not indexed in a way that creates thin pages in search engines.
Search on CMS-Driven Framer Sites
Search becomes most valuable on sites driven by a CMS, where content volume grows over time. A blog with five posts does not need search, but a blog with two hundred does. The good news is that most Framer search solutions can index CMS collections, so new entries become searchable automatically as you publish them.
When setting up search on a CMS site, decide which collections belong in results. A blog collection clearly should be searchable. A collection of internal data records, like team member entries used only to build an about page, probably should not appear in search results. Configure the index to include only what visitors would meaningfully look for, which keeps results focused and useful.
Think about how results display for CMS content too. A blog result should show the title, a snippet, and ideally the publish date or category, so visitors can judge relevance quickly. The richer the result preview, the faster people find what they need, which is the entire point of adding search in the first place.
Measuring Whether Your Search Is Working
Adding search is not the end of the job. You should know whether visitors actually use it and whether it helps them. Dedicated search services provide analytics out of the box, showing the most common queries, the queries that return no results, and how often people click a result.
These numbers are gold for improving your site. Queries with no results tell you what content visitors expect but cannot find, which is a direct signal for what to write next. Popular queries reveal what people care about most, which can inform your navigation and homepage. If you use a simpler plugin without built-in analytics, you can still learn a lot by adding event tracking to search interactions in your analytics tool.
Treat search as a living feature. Review the query data periodically, fix gaps in your content, and refine which pages you index. A search box that consistently surfaces the right answer builds trust and keeps visitors on your site longer.
How Framer Websites Implements Search
At Framer Websites, we match the search approach to the site. For content blogs and marketing sites, a well-styled marketplace plugin keeps things fast and maintainable. For documentation portals and large CMS sites, we integrate a dedicated search service through a custom code component so relevance and speed stay excellent at scale. In every case, we design the search experience, the empty states, and the result layout to feel native to the brand.
If your Framer site has grown to the point where visitors need search, our team can scope and build the right solution. Reach out through our contact page to talk through what your content needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Framer have built-in site search?
Framer does not include a full built-in search engine out of the box. You add search using a plugin from the Framer marketplace or by connecting a third-party search service through a custom code component. For most content sites, a marketplace search plugin is the quickest and cleanest option.
What is the easiest way to add search to a Framer site?
The easiest way is to install a dedicated site search plugin from the Framer marketplace. These plugins index your pages and CMS collections automatically, drop a styled search component onto your canvas, and require no code. You configure what to index, place the search box, and publish.
Can I use Algolia with Framer?
Yes. You can integrate Algolia or a similar search service by building a Framer code component that queries the service’s API and renders results. This approach gives you fast, typo-tolerant search with strong relevance ranking, and it suits large documentation or CMS sites that need more than a basic plugin provides.