[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #34886: Search Form should not submit empty strings

[WordPress Trac]

#34886: Search Form should not submit empty strings
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 Reporter:  gibrown      |      Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Widgets      |    Version:  trunk
 Severity:  normal       |   Keywords:
  Focuses:               |
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 Depending on the styling it is not always obvious to the user that there
 is a text box to click in before hitting the search button. On
 WordPress.com we are seeing about 3.5% of all site search queries are an
 empty string.

 For the end user this costs them the extra page load, and the confusion of
 having the page loaded. By selecting the field instead we avoid the user
 changing pages, and needing to re-find the search box.

 Similar problems are very prevalent in many themes. The most popular
 single word (that is not a stop word) in site search for WordPress.com is
 "search" due to the default value text being searched in themes. For most
 of the Twenty themes this problem is solved by not displaying the search
 button at all (display: none;). Fixing this in core should help point the
 way for fixing it in themes.

 Twenty Ten does not have the search button hidden and so is a good theme
 for reproducing the problem.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/34886>
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