Description
Beplus Search Visibility lets you keep individual posts, pages, or whole post types out of your site’s search results — without unpublishing them or blocking search engines. Excluded content still displays normally everywhere else: the homepage, archives, RSS feeds, and direct links.
Key Features
- Per-post exclude — a simple checkbox on the post/page edit screen, in a “Search Visibility” box.
- Quick toggle column — a “Search” column on the post list screen lets you flip a post’s visibility with one click, no need to open it.
- Bulk actions — exclude or re-include many posts at once from the list screen.
- Whole post type exclude — remove an entire post type (e.g. a “Testimonials” custom post type) from search results with one setting, no per-post work needed.
- Choose which post types get the feature — enable the per-post checkbox and column only where you need them.
- wp-admin search is never affected — editors can always find excluded content to manage it; only the public front-end search is filtered.
How It Works
- Enable the feature for one or more post types in Settings > Search Visibility.
- On any enabled post type, check “Exclude this from search results” in the Search Visibility box, or use the Search column’s toggle / the bulk action on the list screen.
- The plugin hooks into
pre_get_postsand removes excluded posts (and, optionally, entire excluded post types) from the public search query only.
Known Limitations
- The REST API search endpoint (
/wp-json/wp/v2/search) is not filtered in this version — only the front-ends=search query is affected. - wp-admin’s own post list search is intentionally left unfiltered, so editors can always find excluded content to manage it.
About BePlus
This plugin is developed and maintained by BePlus, a WordPress and Shopify development studio with 10+ years of experience building themes and plugins for nonprofits and eCommerce brands.
Learn more at beplusthemes.com.
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the
beplus-search-visibilityfolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
- Go to Settings > Search Visibility to choose which post types get the feature.
FAQ
-
Does excluding a post remove it from my site?
-
No. The post stays published and visible everywhere — homepage, archives, RSS, direct link. It’s only left out of the results when someone uses your site’s search.
-
Does this affect the search box inside wp-admin (the post list screen)?
-
No. Excluding a post only affects the public front-end search. Editors can still find and manage excluded posts normally from the wp-admin post list.
-
Can I exclude a whole custom post type instead of marking each post?
-
Yes. Go to Settings > Search Visibility and add the post type to the “Exclude entire post type from search” list.
-
Does this work with the Block Editor and Classic Editor?
-
Yes, the Search Visibility metabox works in both.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Beplus Search Visibility” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Beplus Search Visibility” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- Initial release.
- Per-post exclude via a metabox on the post edit screen.
- Quick toggle column and bulk actions on the post list screen.
- Settings page: enable per-post exclude per post type, or exclude an entire post type from search.