You could try using several regexps to only search outside angle brackets: function wpse159789_posts_search( $search, $query ) { if ( ! preg_match( '/wp_posts.post_content LIKE \'%(.+)%\'/', $search, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE ) ) { return $search; } $q_search = esc_sql( preg_quote( stripslashes( $matches[1][0] ) ) ); $regexs = array(); $regexs[] = '^' . $q_search; $regexs[] = '^[^<]+' . $q_search; $regexs[] = '<[^>]*>' . $q_search; $regexs[] = '<[^>]*>[^<]+' . $q_search; $regex = 'wp_posts.post_content RLIKE \'' . implode( '\' OR wp_posts.post_content RLIKE \'', $regexs ) . '\''; $search = substr( $search, 0, $matches[0][1] ) . $regex . substr( $search, $matches[0][1] + strlen( $matches[0][0] ) ); return $search; } add_filter( 'posts_search', 'wpse159789_posts_search', 10, 2 ); I'm not sure this covers all cases, but seems to work on limited testing ... (it'd be a lot simpler if MySQL regexp supported look behind/ahead).