Footnotes Do Not Appear In Search Results

[mrfoxtalbot]

Description

Text in the footnotes does not show in search results. This is because search only queries post_title, post_content and post_excerpt and has been a known issues for 7 years. https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40341

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

1. Add a string of text to a footnote
2. Look up that string of text in search
3. No results are shown

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

String in a footnote:

Search Results:

Environment info

• WordPress 6.5.3 + TT4
• With and without the Gutenberg plugin.
• No other plugins.

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

Yes

[Mamaduka]

I think this is a core issue. Footnotes are stored in postmeta, which is rarely included in search queries due to performance.

In my opinion, any change we introduce here must be discussed in core tickets first.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Yup, I said so in the opening paragraph :)

This is because search only queries post_title, post_content and post_excerpt and has been a known issues for 7 years. https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40

I thought it made sense to open an issue for awareness as it has become more relevant with the introduction of foot notes.

I added a [Type} WP Core Ticket label.

[Mamaduka]

@mrfoxtalbot, I get it. But this isn't actionable in the Gutenberg plugin, so I'm unsure what purpose the issue will serve.

[mrfoxtalbot]

Sure, le me explain my logic: We have 20 issues labeled as [Type} WP Core Ticket: Requires an upstream change from WordPress. Core Trac ticket should be linked.

I thought this was a good example of such ticket: affects the block editor but is not directly fixable in the block editor's code and hence worth tracking but please let me know if I am misunderstanding something about this specific issue or about how this label should be used.

Thank you!