Tags describe a post more precisely than a category does. If your readers think in tags, give them a tag filter rather than a category one.
The setup is identical to the category version — only the taxonomy changes.
For every Search Bar setting in one place, see the Search Bar guide.
Before You Start
- Edition: Free. Measured with Nexter Blocks Pro deactivated, the Search Bar renders identically — form, input, dropdowns, suggestions and results all work without Pro.
- Block to enable: Search Bar, switched on under Nexter > Blocks in your WordPress dashboard.
- Posts with tags applied. The dropdown is built from your tag terms.
Steps
- Select your Search Bar block and add a filter field with taxonomy as its source.
- Choose Tag as the taxonomy, then publish and try it.
How It Behaves
- The dropdown lists your live tags. Measured on a site with eight tags, the dropdown rendered 9 options including the All entry.
- Choosing a tag adds a taxonomy condition to the query, exactly as the category filter does.
- Tags render flat. Unlike categories they have no hierarchy, so there is nothing to indent.
- Each option can show its post count.
- Only the title is searched by default. Measured: with the default settings a term matched 4 posts by title; switching the search fields off entirely fell through to WordPress’s own query and matched 15.
- It degrades to an ordinary search. The block renders a real
<form method="get">pointing at your site root, so with JavaScript disabled the bar still submits and lands on WordPress’s own search results.
Limitations
- Tags with no posts still appear in the dropdown and return nothing when chosen.
- A long tag list makes a long dropdown. Sites that tag heavily end up with a dropdown that is hard to scan, which is an argument for filtering by category instead.
- One tag at a time. There is no multi-select.
- The tag narrows, it does not search. The typed term still has to match a field.
Troubleshooting
The tag dropdown is empty
No tags exist yet, or the taxonomy was not selected on the filter field.
Choosing a tag returns nothing
Either no post carries that tag, or the typed term does not match any searched field on the posts that do.
I want both a category and a tag filter
Add two filter fields, one per taxonomy. Each renders its own dropdown.
