Creator Assistant Search

FAQ

Does this plugin work without Creator Assistant – Hub?

No. Creator Assistant Search is an add-on that requires Creator Assistant – Hub to be installed and configured. The Hub provides the OpenAI and Qdrant connections that this plugin relies on.

Which post types are included in the search?

By default, posts and pages are vectorized and included in search results. If you have Creator Assistant – Hub Pro, you can exclude specific post types from the Content tab in the Hub settings page.

Does the AI Overview appear for every search?

The AI Overview appears when the plugin finds at least one relevant content chunk for the search term. If no relevant content is found in your Qdrant collection, the standard search results are shown without the overview panel.

The AI Overview never appears: what should I check?

This usually means your content has not been vectorized yet. Vectorization is handled entirely by Creator Assistant – Hub: new and updated posts are vectorized on save, and existing posts are picked up by the Hub’s hourly WP-Cron batch, which requires WP-Cron to be running on your site. See the “How do I check whether the service is properly configured?” question in the Creator Assistant – Hub readme for the Site Health check and WP-Cron troubleshooting steps.

How long does the AI Overview take to appear?

The overview is generated asynchronously via Server-Sent Events: the page loads with the standard search results immediately. The AI answer is then streamed progressively into the panel character by character (typically within a few seconds). If the answer for the same query was already cached, it appears almost instantly.

Is the AI Overview cached?

Yes. The generated answer is cached for one hour using WordPress transients. Repeated searches for the same query within that window return the cached result without any OpenAI API call.

Administrators can bypass the cache for a specific search by appending ?cas_no_cache=1 to the search URL (e.g. https://example.com/?s=shoes&cas_no_cache=1). This forces a fresh OpenAI call and overwrites the cached result. The bypass is only available to users with the manage_options capability and has no effect for regular visitors.

Does the plugin modify my posts, pages, or theme files?

No. Creator Assistant Search is entirely non-destructive. It injects the AI Overview panel above search results using standard WordPress hooks (render_block_core/query for block themes, loop_start for classic themes). No theme files are ever touched. Your posts, pages, and all their content remain exactly as they are.

Are my visitors’ search queries stored in the database?

Search queries are never stored in plain text in your database. The plugin uses an anonymous hash of the query as a transient cache key for the AI response. The cached answer expires automatically after one hour and is then deleted. No query logs, no user identifiers, no permanent records.

The search term itself is sent to OpenAI to generate the AI answer (subject to OpenAI’s privacy policy), but it is not stored persistently by this plugin.

Does the AI Overview replace my existing search results?

No. The AI Overview is an additional panel displayed above your standard search results. It does not remove, reorder, or replace any of them. If no relevant content is found in your Qdrant collection, the standard results are shown without any panel at all.

Can I customise the appearance of the AI Overview?

Yes, in two ways:

1. Color scheme: go to Appearance → Customize → AI Overview and choose between automatic (follows the visitor’s system preference), light, or dark mode. Changes are previewed live in the Customizer.
2. Custom CSS: the panel uses CSS classes prefixed with creator-assistant-search__ai-overview that you can override in your theme stylesheet. The animated border and typed-text effect are provided by Creator Assistant – Hub’s shared assets.

Can I place the AI Overview panel somewhere else?

Yes, but it has to go in whatever renders your search results page. The panel is built from the site’s main search query, so it produces nothing anywhere else. Putting the block or the shortcode in a normal page or in a page template will show nothing at all.

First, in Creator Assistant → Search, turn off “Insert the AI Overview automatically in search results”. Leaving it on means two sources competing for the same panel: it is still shown at most once per page, but whichever renders first wins, so it may not appear where you placed it.

Then place it, depending on your theme:

• Block theme: go to Appearance → Editor → Templates → Search and insert the “AI Overview” block, usually right above the query loop that lists the results. If your theme has no Search template, use its Index template instead.
• Classic theme: add the [creator_assistant_search_ai_overview] shortcode to search.php in your child theme.

Both render exactly the same panel. A custom “search page” built with a query loop on a normal page will not work: WordPress does not treat that as a search results page, so the panel has no query to answer.

Can I change what the AI is told to do?

Yes. In Creator Assistant → Search you can keep the default prompt, add your own instructions on top of it, or replace it completely. The page always shows the prompt currently in use, including the sections added by add-ons such as Creator Assistant – Search Pro.

Adding instructions is usually the better choice: your text is appended to the default prompt, so you keep the improvements shipped with future plugin updates.