AI Smart Search ✨ – Listeo Knowledge Base

AI Search brings natural language search to your directory website with OpenAI or Gemini or Mistral AI. Users can search using everyday phrases instead of just keywords.

Try it yourself on our demo: https://listeo.pro/

Key Benefits:
✅ Natural Language: Users can search like they talk: cozy restaurant with outdoor seating.
✅ AI understands context and finds businesses that meet user needs.
✅ Analytics Insights: Track popular searches to understand your users better

What Users Search For	Standard WordPress Search	Listeo AI Search
romantic dinner spot	❌ No — “romantic” rarely appears in restaurant listings	✅ Finds fine dining, intimate cafes, date-night restaurants
dog grooming services Pet care needs	⚠️ Maybe — only if exact words “dog grooming” appear	✅ Finds pet salons, mobile groomers, veterinary services
kids birthday party venue	❌ No — exact phrase not in venue descriptions	✅ Shows party halls, entertainment centers, kid-friendly venues

The plugin creates a vector database by turning each listing into an embedding – a unique numerical representation capturing its meaning. User queries get converted the same way, then matched mathematically to find the closest results.

⚙️Installation

Plugin is automatically installed with Listeo. However if you can’t see it or have older theme version you can download it manually:

Go to https://purethemes.net/license/ and download AI Chat & Search plugin
You’ll need purchase key: How to find my license key?
Install and activate ai-chat-search.zip in WP Dashboard → Plugin → Add New

Configuration

Navigate to AI Chat & Search in your WordPress sidebar.
Add your Open AI api or Gemini or Mistral AI key and configure plugin to your needs.
How to create Open AI API key? →
How to create Gemini API key? →
How to create Mistral API key? →
Then go to Data Training tab and click “🚀 Start Training“.

For listing searching feature you need only Listings as training data. Other post types that are locked are available in Pro version but can be used by chatbot feature.
Once database is ready go to Listeo Editor → Search Forms and add “AI Field” to your search forms
and that’s it 🙂 “AI Quick Picks” allow visitor to quickly get best 3 matching listings , it’s optional setting.
Statistics tab – comprehensive analytics and insights + chat history in pro version if you use AI chatbot
It is recommended to set “Best Match” as a default sorting method – with this setting listings with highest match score will be first.
Listeo Core → Browse/Search Options→ By default sort listings by

FAQ

I see not enough or no search results at all

Follow this checklist:

1. ✅ Make sure your your listings have AI embeddings generated
2. ✅ Make sure your listings have keyword-rich descriptions!
3. ✅ Try “Query Expansion” feature
4. ✅ Lower “Minimum Match Percentage” setting
5. ✅ Clear cache in AI Chat & Search → Developer & Debug Options → Clear Cache. Maybe you searched for listing using keyword X then results got cached and you don’t see
Why search results are decent but not perfect?

AI search understands meaning, so it finds relevant results even when the exact words aren’t in your listings. That’s why it can match “romantic dinner spot” with fine dining restaurants or “dog grooming” with pet salons.

But it’s not magic — it works from the text in your listings. If a listing has almost no description, or uses very unusual wording, the AI may miss it. Also, in rare cases, it might return a result that feels related but isn’t exactly what you meant.

In short: it’s far better than keyword search, but like any search, it depends on good, descriptive content.
What does 'Minimum Match Percentage' control?

This setting determines how closely a listing must match the search query to appear in
results.

Setting Range: 0-100 (Default: 65)
Impact on Search Results:
– Lower Values (40-60): More results, some may be less relevant
– Medium Values (65-75): Balanced relevance and quantity (recommended)
– Higher Values (80-95): Fewer but highly relevant results

Example:
– Query: “Italian restaurant”
– 50% threshold: Returns pizza places, pasta shops, Mediterranean food
– 80% threshold: Only returns specifically Italian restaurants
Should I enable 'Query Expansion'?

Query expansion uses AI to understand and broaden search terms for better results.

Example:
– Original query: “coffee shop”
– Expanded query might include: “café”, “espresso bar”, “coffee house”

Trade-offs:
– ✅ Enabled: Better coverage, finds more results but not necessary always relevant (depends on minimal match settings)
– ❌ Disabled: Faster processing, more literal searches
What data is processed to OpenAI/Gemini/Mistral in AI Search?

After installing plugin, adding Open AI api key and clicking “Start Training” the plugin sends structured listing data to OpenAI’s / Gemini embeddings model to create vector embeddings: listing name, category, location, amenities, features, description, FAQ, pricing/menu, user reviews (positive only, rating ≥3.0)

When this happens:
– Manual regeneration via admin panel
– Daily cron job (listeo_ai_update_embeddings) for changed listings
– When a listing is created/updated (if auto-update enabled)

What happens when user is searching?
– Listings data is not sent again when user searches for something
– User’s search query text is sent to OpenAI to generate an embedding vector
– This vector is compared locally against stored embeddings (no additional API calls)

⚙️Installation

Configuration

FAQ

I see not enough or no search results at all

Why search results are decent but not perfect?

What does 'Minimum Match Percentage' control?

Should I enable 'Query Expansion'?

What data is processed to OpenAI/Gemini/Mistral in AI Search?

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