diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 90ca32227..a5a5bb23f 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 * pkgdown's deploy_to_branch() now cleans out the website directory by default (`clean = TRUE`). To revert to previous behaviour, call it with `clean = FALSE`. (#1394)
 
 * pkgdown now supports local searching. It is enabled by default because no set-up is needed for users to
-  search pkgdown websites. (#1629)
+  search pkgdown websites. (#1629, with help from @gustavdelius in #1655)
 
 * pkgdown builds a more exhaustive sitemap.xml even for websites built with Bootstrap 3. 
   This might change Algolia results if you use Algolia for search. (#1629)
diff --git a/R/utils.r b/R/utils.r
index f217cdb34..c3ca9ff82 100644
--- a/R/utils.r
+++ b/R/utils.r
@@ -265,13 +265,9 @@ remove_useless_parts <- function(links, pkg) {
 
 get_section_level <- function(section) {
   as.numeric(
-    sub(
-      "level", "",
-      regmatches(
-        xml2::xml_attr(section, "class"),
-        regexpr("level[1-9]", xml2::xml_attr(section, "class")
-        )
+     gsub(
+        ".*section level(\\d+).*", '\\1',
+        xml2::xml_attr(section, "class")
       )
-    )
   )
 }