Sometimes a whole content type should be searchable except for a handful of pages. Checkout pages, thank you pages, login pages and internal notes are the usual ones. Exclude Specific Items keeps them out without touching the rest of the type.
Where to find it:
Open AiX Search, then Sources & Listings, and scroll to Exclude Specific Items under Content Sources.
How to exclude an item:
- Click the box that says Start typing a page or post title.
- Type part of the title.
- Click the item in the list that appears. Each match shows its type, such as Page.
The item is removed from the index straight away and appears as a chip in your exclusion list. The Dashboard's Excluded Items number goes up by one.
How to put an item back:
Click the small cross on its chip. The item is indexed again at once and can be found as usual.
Exclude a page or switch off a type?
Exclude single pages that should never be found. Switch off a whole content type in Content Sources when nothing in it should be found. If most of a type should be found but a few categories should not, use the category filter instead. See Filtering And Grouping By Category.
Checking an exclusion worked:
- Open the Dashboard.
- Type a word from the excluded page's title into the Live Preview.
- The page no longer appears. The Excluded Items number shows your new total.
Why exclusions stick:
Excluded items stay out when you rebuild the whole index, and they are also skipped when someone edits and saves them, so they never quietly come back.
Member Activity, if you use it, never records views of excluded items either, because it only tracks searchable content.
A real example:
The Home Bakery Club excludes four pages:
- Thank You For Joining
- Checkout
- Member Login
- Search, the results page itself
A member who searches for join or login now sees the Membership Plans page and the Help Centre, not a bare checkout form.
Tips:
- Exclude your results page. It holds only a search box, so it is never a useful result.
- To send a search to one page rather than hide pages, use a promoted result. See Promoted Results: Pinning A Page To The Top.
- To hide whole categories, use the category filter. See Filtering And Grouping By Category.