Disable the WordPress Public Search

Sometimes you just might not need the search functionality for your website but, just by not enabling it doesn’t mean the content is not searchable, If for any reason you need to disable the WordPress public search use this function.

function my_disable_public_search( $q ) {
	if ( $q->is_admin ) {
		return $q;
	}

	if ( $q->is_search ) {
		unset( $_GET['s'] );
		unset( $_POST['s'] );
		unset( $_REQUEST['s'] );
		$q->set( 's', '' );
		$q->is_search = false;
		$q->set_404();
	}
}

add_action( 'parse_query', 'my_disable_public_search', 5 );