No Results Found 🙁
I love Divi and especially the new Theme Builder, but it has some issues. But hey, it gives content producers like me something to do! The big issue I encountered recently on a client site was the “No results found” message. But here’s the thing — I was using the Divi Theme builder, and this was a template made with Divi, not a regular page.
What Is The Problem
The problem first showed up when I realized the Divi layout that I so tirelessly created in the Theme Builder completely disappeared when I loaded a category that did not have posts yet. I think this is poor, and I’ll explain why. I would understand if the blog module disappeared, but what about the row and section that was so nicely styled? The entire layout disappeared and was replaced by the boring “no results found” message.
It feels like this should be included in the template somehow because after all, this is a theme builder. But hey, let’s edit the theme instead! I’m going to show you how to use a Divi Layout that you can design however you want instead of the boring “no results found” message.
1. Create Your Layout In Divi
Save a Section To the Divi Library
We’ll start with the easy part of creating our “no-results” message by building the layout with the Divi Builder. You can choose to do this on any page that you have handy or directly in the Divi Library. Just be sure to use a blue section.
What To Include
You will want to be careful what you say here. In my example, I knew it was going to be a category of dogs that were either available or adapted. If they puppies were all adapted, there would be none to show on the “Adapted” category page. But if the puppies were all Available, and someone sent to the “Available” category, they would also see this same message. So I had to keep it generic, but yet relevant. I included a headline, explainer text, and two buttons.
2. Use A Divi Child Theme
The only way we can create a no results message with a Divi layout is by using a child theme.
If you do not have a child theme installed yet then I suggest downloading and using our free Divi child theme.
If you already have a child theme installed then you can proceed.
Once you have a child theme installed, go to the place where you prefer to edit the child theme files, whether that be in cpanel, ftp, or in the File Manager plugin (you can’t do this first step from Appearance>Theme Editor because you need to add a folder first).
NOTE: Be sure to follow along with the video as this tutorial is rather technical!
Create a folder called “includes” in the same directory as your functions.php.
Inside that folder, create a new file called “no-results.php.” Open it in a code editor and paste the following snippet below into the no-results.php file of the child theme.
<?php echo do_shortcode('[et_pb_section global_module="1234"][/et_pb_section]'); ?>3. Get The Divi Layout ID
The last step is to link the Divi Layout you created to the code that you just pasted into your child theme. You may notice the “1234” in the code snippet above. You need to edit those numbers to match the idea of the Divi section saved in your Divi Library.
It’s easy to find the section ID. Just go into edit mode, and you will see a series of letters and numbers in the URL. Again, it may be helpful to follow along with the video.
Go ahead and replace the “1234” with those numbers in the no-results.php file. Once you save the file, you are all finished and you can go test this out. The easiest way to test it is to go to your Posts>Categories and click to view one of the categories that does not have any posts in it yet, or just make a quick sample category to test it.
Hi could I somehow do this with snippets plugin instead of child theme? Trying to do this for divi with woocommerce shop when it shows no featured items i get the same message.
The option of using a child theme is always the best option to opt for but if you want to use any third-party plugin then please try searching it on the internet and you will get a lot of them. 🙂
Could this be used to target only specific modules defind by CSS Class?
For example the shop module when no product turns up on a search?
I’m not sure, I never checked it on that. Did you give it a try?
Hi Nelson, thanks a lot! I followed your instructions to customize the message in a Divi shop module where only a specific category is shown. Works perfectly! 🙂
Encouraged by this I added a second line in the file to customize the product category ‘No results’ message:
Unfortunately, that doesn’t change anything. Why do you think that is?
Thanks again!
But
I got it to work, I didn’t need an extra line/2nd library layout, I needed to adjust the page assignments in the theme builder!
Really great tutorial. Worked perfectly. Thank you!
Thank you, I’m so glad you like it!
Great help! Just one problem. My text block and background show up but none of the padding or text styling is applied. I can’t figure out what’s blocking it.
SOLVED: The issue was a plugin conflict. Thanks for your great teaching videos. This one works like a charm!
Great that your issue is solved.
You’re welcome! 🙂
Hi Jim
Could you share the URL of your site so I can investigate it further?
Hi, Nelson, there is a problem with this method. I am using a search tool as well. And when I type a search word that results in “No Result” it brings up this custom section. In fact, any Blog will bring up the same message if left with no item in the category.
Is there a way to customize this only to a specific Blog?
Hey Ahssan,
We will check this issue and will let you know what’s the ideal solution for this.
Thanks for sharing, as always! I’ve followed this tutorial and for some reason the “no results” message isn’t showing anything at all. It’s hidden the default message, but not displaying my custom section. Any ideas why?
Hey Molly,
Could you please remove the code because of which the No result message got disappeared and comment again so I can check from where the issue is arising?
Just removed!
Some additional insight if this helps:
– When I went into my blog category template in the Divi builder I could see the custom “No results” message displaying but it was showing below the blog section when no results were available.
– As a test, I added a ton of padding to the bottom of the section which contains the blog component and when I did that, the custom “no results” message DID display.
– It just appears that the “no results” message I created based on the tutorial above didn’t replace the default message, it hid the old one and displayed below where the default message would have displayed.
Not sure if that makes sense. Let me know if you come across anything that might be causing this. Always grateful for your help, thanks!
The code seems to be pulling in my 404 page template from my theme builder, any ideas on how to work around this? I am hoping to target the portfolio module specifically. Thanks!
Hey Katelyn,
Could you please share the URL of the page for me to investigate it further?
Hi Nelson. This is so helpful. I have a question for you though. I followed all of the steps however I’m having the following issue:
I have created a search results template in my divi theme builder and what is happening at the moment when I do a serch that yields no results is that the search results template still encompases my no results layout that I created with your method. Specifically the no results layout isn’t covering the whole page but is centralised and surrounded by my search results template.
Is there a way to exclude the no results layout from the search results template?
Thanks in advance
I believe it all the same no-results.php so I don’t know.