The 'Search' and 'Smart Search' components have coexisted since Joomla 2.5.

Search (or com_search) would provide a straightforward search feature while Smart Search would offer indexing and more advanced search capabilities with filtering.

Smart Search (or com_finder if you look for it in the Joomla repository) has been greatly improved in Joomla 4. More streamlined, more performant, more 'modern'. Find out how you can transition from one to the other on your site.

Search has not been removed on systems which migrated to Joomla 4 from an earlier version. If you had a site under Joomla 3 using 'Search', it was moved over to your migrated site. However, if you do start a new site under Joomla 4, the 'old' search component is no longer installed. It has been considered outdated and no longer suitable for modern designs.

As Search is phasing out, moving to Smart Search is rather simple. However, some sites may require special attention, especially if plugins have been created specifically for your site or if third-party extensions installed their own search plugins.

Search and Smart Search both rely on plugins (or little extensions that are triggered throughout the creation of a page, for specific tasks). There is a plugin for every kind of data that can be searched and indexed. When it comes to core Joomla, you will find plugins for categories, content, contacts…

By enabling or disabling those plugins, the search extensions can provide more or fewer results from different sets of data.

Your site uses 'Smart Search’ with 'finder' plugins.

You are in luck, you are already using the latest search features!

Your site uses 'Search' and only core ‘search’ plugins are used.

• replace module instances of 'Search' with module instances of 'Smart Search'.

• disable plugins of 'search' type.

Disable the search plugins

• Enable corresponding plugins of the 'finder' type.

Enable the required finder plugins

• replace menu items created with the 'Search' component with menu items created with the 'Smart search' component.

Your site uses 'Search', some or all core plugins, and third-party plugins.

Go through the steps of the previous use case.

Additionally:

• disable third-party plugins of the 'search' type and enable corresponding plugins of the 'finder' type (usually, third-party extensions provide plugins for both search extensions).

Your site uses 'Search', some or all core plugins, some third-party plugins and a few customized plugins.

Go through the steps of the previous use case.

Additionally:

• disable the custom plugins. New plugins will need to be created for use with Smart Search.

Setup the Smart Search component

Follow Joomla’s documentation to set up the Smart Search component.

https://docs.joomla.org/Help4.x:Smart_Search:_Indexed_Content

The Smart Search indexer

Disable or uninstall the Search component.

Once satisfied with your new settings, you can safely disable or remove the old Search extension (when uninstalling, just do so on the package pkg_search).

Uninstalling the Search component.

And there you have it, you will have transitioned from search to smart search.