ChatGPT Chatbot WordPress free – Settings and contexts

The freemium version of SmartSearchWP already lets you set up a chatbot powered by ChatGPT, directly on your WordPress site.
In this tutorial, we’ll review the plugin’s main settings, explain how they influence chatbot behavior and show how to add your first pages and posts to the AI context.

Step 1 – Access general settings

From the WordPress dashboard, go to:
SmartSearchWP → Settings → General Settings

Here you can customize the chatbot:

• Activate or deactivate its display.

• Enter your OpenAI API key.

• Choose the model – we recommend GPT-4o for its speed and precision.

• Customize the chatbot’s name, logo, greeting message and chat bubble text.

Step 2 – Understanding advanced settings

Advanced settings define how the chatbot responds to users:

• Temperature – controls creativity.

  • Low value = coherent, formal answers.

  • High value = more original, sometimes unexpected answers.

• Max Used Contexts – number of pages or articles used to build a response.

  • The higher the value, the richer the answer, but beware of digressions.

• Similarity Threshold – filters content according to its proximity to the question asked.

  • High threshold = only highly relevant content is taken into account.

• Precision Threshold – sets the minimum level of quality that a context must achieve.

  • High threshold = precise answers, but the chatbot may sometimes fail to respond if no context is deemed sufficient.

These parameters directly influence the accuracy, richness and personality of the answers.

Step 3 – Understanding the RAG model

SmartSearchWP is based on the RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) model.
This means that the chatbot doesn’t generate its answers at random: it starts by searching for information in your activated content (“Retrieval” part), then builds on it to generate an adapted answer (“Generation” part).
Result: reliable, up-to-date answers directly linked to your site’s content.

Step 4 – Adding content to the context

To make the chatbot relevant, you need to provide it with content to use.

Go to SmartSearchWP → Contexts.
Here you’ll find a color-coded list of your pages and articles:

• Light green: active, up-to-date content (embeddings generated and synchronized).

• Yellow: contents active but modified since generation – regeneration required.

• Red or no tick: inactive content, not taken into account by the chatbot.

Filters and grouped actions

• Filter by content type (pages, articles or all).

• Search for a title to save time.

• Use grouped actions to train AI or activate multiple contents at once.

To integrate content into the context :

1. Select the page or article (check box).

2. Click on Generate Embeddings or Retraining AI (if content is obsolete).

3. Click on Activate.

The line turns green: your content is now included in the chatbot’s knowledge base.

Step 5 – Testing your chatbot

Go to the front-end of your site.
Open the chatbot (by default in the bottom right-hand corner) and ask a question related to the activated content.

👉 If everything is set up correctly, the chatbot will respond with a relevant answer based on your content.

With this freemium configuration, you already have a powerful, intelligent powerful and intelligent chatbot for WordPresswith no premium subscription, and full control over what it knows.

Next steps:

• Gradually add new pages or articles important to the context.

• Test different parameter values to fine-tune precision or creativity.

• Upgrade to the Premium version to unlock advanced features such as :

  • customizing the chatbot’s design,

  • WooCommerce integration,

  • PDF file support,

  • Custom Post Types (CPT),

  • integration of ACF fields,

  • personalizing the prompt,

  • or chatbot access management.

👉 Find more guides in the complete documentation: https: //www.smartsearchwp.com/docs