How do I exclude pages from search results?

[Ronin]

Hi,

I could not find an answer to this question anywhere on the forum, so I have to ask.

I was about to edit my 404 page when I decided to test the built-in default search that is included with the socrates template. The search works fine, however, it is also pulling up all pages for a given search term including download pages and other pages that I have specifically excluded from categories and pages.

These pages have obscure slugs, no meta keywords, no titles, no tags, are all set noindex, nofollow and are not included in any menus, categories or pages.

I need them to be hidden to the greatest extent possible and having them show up in a basic site search is unacceptable. If a search term is found in the page content, the page will be displayed in the results which is highly undesirable. How can I correct this issue?

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help.

[Dan Nickerson]

This is a wordpress issue.

You can try this plugin.
http://www.codehooligans.com/projects/wordpress/simply-exclude/

You do bring up a good point though, I hadn't thought about the implications of search with hidden pages. Looks like a lot of people on Wordpress.org are looking for a solution.

Might be a good plugin to build.

[Ronin]

Thanks for the reply. I might do that.

[Ronin]

Your suggestion worked! The Simply Exclude wp-plugin seems to be doing it for me. [WP ver. 3.04, Socrates ver. 2.10]

So, thanks again!