By default, the WordPress search mechanism returns results that include all pages, posts, and other content types on the site. While reorganizing Zhou Liang’s Blog recently, I needed to gain some control over what appears in search results and exclude content I don’t want readers to find.

From an efficiency standpoint, I’m not a fan of reinventing the wheel, so I searched for some existing code snippets. This post is purely a memo for myself.

Exclude Specific Posts or Pages by ID

//Exclude specific posts or pages by ID from search results
function Bing_search_filter_id($query) {
	if ( !$query->is_admin && $query->is_search) {
		$query->set('post__not_in', array(13,14));//IDs of posts/pages to exclude
	}
	return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts','Bing_search_filter_id');

Exclude All Posts Under Specific Categories

//Exclude all posts under specific categories from search results
function Bing_search_filter_category( $query) {
	if ( !$query->is_admin && $query->is_search) {
		$query->set('cat','-11,-13'); //Category IDs; prefix with minus sign to exclude; without the minus sign, search is limited to that category
	}
	return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts','Bing_search_filter_category');

Exclude All Pages from Search Results

//Exclude all pages from search results
function search_filter_page($query) {
	if ($query->is_search) {
		$query->set('post_type', 'post');
	}
	return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts','search_filter_page');