Limit WordPress Search to Post Titles Only

There are situations (quite common) where you want to limit WordPress search to titles only and not the post body text. To do this, add the following code to your functions.php file. For a more powerful search engine, see Relevanssi Better Search. Note that this function also applies to search performed from the WordPress dashboard.

/**
 * Search SQL filter for matching against post title only.
 *
 * @param   string      $search
 * @param   WP_Query    $wp_query
 */
function wpse_11826_search_by_title( $search, $wp_query ) {
    if ( ! empty( $search ) && ! empty( $wp_query->query_vars['search_terms'] ) ) {
        global $wpdb;

        $q = $wp_query->query_vars;
        $n = ! empty( $q['exact'] ) ? '' : '%';

        $search = array();

        foreach ( ( array ) $q['search_terms'] as $term )
            $search[] = $wpdb->prepare( "$wpdb->posts.post_title LIKE %s", $n . $wpdb->esc_like( $term ) . $n );

        if ( ! is_user_logged_in() )
            $search[] = "$wpdb->posts.post_password = ''";

        $search = ' AND ' . implode( ' AND ', $search );
    }

    return $search;
}

add_filter( 'posts_search', 'wpse_11826_search_by_title', 10, 2 );