How to exclude wordpress page template(custom template) from search results?

5 comments

1. For anyone whom stumbles on this thread and doesn’t succeed on WP newer versions: the $query args must be set instead redoing query_posts… as the follows:

   // exclude any content from search results that use specific page templates
   function exclude_page_templates_from_search($query) {
   
       global $wp_the_query;
       if ( ($wp_the_query === $query) && (is_search()) && ( ! is_admin()) ) {
   
               $query->set(
                   'meta_query',
                   array(
             array(
                 'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                 'value' => 'page-template-1.php',
                 'compare' => '!='
                 )
             )
         );
       }
   
   }
   add_filter('pre_get_posts','exclude_page_templates_from_search');
   

   Log in to Reply

2. The query mentioned by Nicolay is very handy, but it also removes all posts from the search results, because posts do not contain the '_wp_page_template' key. To have all pages (sans the filtered template) as well as all posts you need to do the following:

   // exclude any content from search results that use specific page templates
   function exclude_page_templates_from_search($query) {
       global $wp_the_query;
       if ( ($wp_the_query === $query) && (is_search()) && ( ! is_admin()) ) {
           $meta_query = 
               array(
   // set OR, default is AND
                   'relation' => 'OR',
   // remove pages with foo.php template from results
                   array(
                       'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                       'value' => 'foo.php',
                       'compare' => '!='
                   ),
   // show all entries that do not have a key '_wp_page_template'
                   array(
                       'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                       'value' => 'page-thanks.php',
                       'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
                   )
               );
           $query->set('meta_query', $meta_query);
       }
   }
   add_filter('pre_get_posts','exclude_page_templates_from_search');
   

   Extensive info on this can be found in the WordPress Codex.

   Log in to Reply

3. Try this:

   global $wp_query;
   $args = array_merge($wp_query->query, array(
       'meta_query' => array(
           array(
               'key' => '_wp_page_template',
               'value' => 'foo.php',
               'compare' => '!='
           )
       ),
   ));
   query_posts( $args );
   

   Log in to Reply

4. Thanks Nikolay! For some reason last night I just was not getting this to work but today, after another hour or two, I did. It may have simply been the fact that I was using the wrong filter or was missing the last line of your code.

   In my case I wanted to exclude content based upon multiple templates, so, added more key/value/compare array elements. I also only wanted to do this during a search, so, added a conditional clause for that. Here’s the complete function I added to my theme’s functions.php file:

   // exclude any content from search results that use specific page templates
   function exclude_page_templates_from_search($query) {
   
       global $wp_the_query;
   
       if ( ($wp_the_query === $query) && (is_search()) && ( ! is_admin()) ) {
   
           $args = array_merge($wp_the_query->query, array(
           'meta_query' => array(
               array(
                   'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                   'value' => 'page-template-1.php',
                   'compare' => '!='
                   ),
               array(
                   'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                   'value' => 'page-template-2.php',
                   'compare' => '!='
                   ),
               array(
                   'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                   'value' => 'page-template-3.php',
                   'compare' => '!='
                   )
               ),
           ));
   
           query_posts( $args );
   
       }
   
   }
   add_filter('pre_get_posts','exclude_page_templates_from_search');
   

   Log in to Reply

5. I had to exclude more than one page template, so I had to adapt the above code a little bit, but in the end, this worked for me:

   function exclude_page_templates_from_search($query) {
       global $wp_the_query;
       if ( ($wp_the_query === $query) && (is_search()) && ( ! is_admin()) ) {
           $meta_query = 
               array(
                   // set OR, default is AND
                   'relation' => 'OR',
                   // remove pages with foo.php template from results
                   array(
                       'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                       'value' => array('page-landings-new.php', 'page-landings-EU.php', 'page-thankyou.php'),
                       'compare' => 'NOT IN'
                   ),
                   // show all entries that do not have a key '_wp_page_template'
                   array(
                       'key' => '_wp_page_template',
                       'value' => 'page-thanks.php',
                       'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
                   )
               );
           $query->set('meta_query', $meta_query);
       }
   }
   add_filter('pre_get_posts','exclude_page_templates_from_search');
   

   Maybe it is useful to somebody out there.

   Log in to Reply