Reindexing Content

The search index is kept in sync with CMS content whenever content is created, updated or deleted via the CMS. There are some situations such as direct MySQL database alterations and code changes that will mean the search index has to be repopulated.

When making changes the data or analyzers that are stored in the search index, you must re-index the content so all results and search operations are using the new data specification. Re-indexing is done via CLI commands, as they are potentially long running, high memory usage tasks.

The elasticpress CLI command is used for all index management operations.

To re-sychronize the index for all sites

wp elasticpress index --network-wide

Re-sychronise the index and updating mappings (needed when updating synonym definitions)

wp elasticpress index --setup

CLI Recommendations

When using CLI to perform re-indexes, it's recommended to set the --posts-per-page argument to a figure around 200. By default, this figure is set to 350 which will often cause service timeouts. For example:

wp elasticpress index --posts-per-page 200

See wp help elasticpress for all available CLI commands.