Features

Search

Make it easier for readers to search for content on your site.

The NHS.UK Eleventy Plugin makes it easy to add search to your website.

It works by creating a search index each time you build your site. This JSON file contains the title, description and URL of every page, plus a list of words that appear on that page.

View an example search index (JSON, opens in a tab)

This search index provides suggestions when users type in the search box in your site’s header.

Configure the search index

To enable search indexing, set templates.searchIndex to true in your plugin options.

Or, you can customise the search index by using these options:

Name	Type	Description
permalink	string	Sets the file name and location (default is /search-index.json). Set to false to disable writing this file to the output folder.

By adding a search index, a search bar will automatically appear in the header.

Add a fallback search method

As the site search requires JavaScript, you can add a fallback search method for users who cannot use JavaScript:

import { nhsukEleventyPlugin } from '@x-govuk/nhsuk-eleventy-plugin'

export default function(eleventyConfig) {
  eleventyConfig.addPlugin(nhsukEleventyPlugin, {
    header: {
      search: {
        action: "/search/",
      }
    }
  })
}

You can find a full list of options for header component, including for the search bar, on the NHS digital service manual website.