Hide custom post type from search based on custom taxonomy

Question

I'm looking to hide from search a few custom post type posts. I'm thinking that if I create a custom taxonomy for the custom post type with a term "hidden" then all posts checked will be hidden. Maybe some filter that I can add to the functions file? By chance has anyone done this or something similar? Please advise, thanks in advance :)

Regards, Kendell

Answer 1

register_post_type() has a argument that you can set to specify which post types you want searched, thus excluded the undesired ones. This is the simplest method, just one line:

'exclude_from_search' = true,

Alternative to that, you can hook into the search query itself via pre_get_posts and then modify the search, specifying which post types you're after:

add_filter('pre_get_posts',function ($query) {
    if ($query->is_search && !is_admin() )
        $query->set('post_type',array('post','page'));
    return $query;
});

If you were dead set on doing the term hiding - although I don't recommend it, as it's more code with a higher chance of user error - you'd do somthing like:

add_action( 'pre_get_posts', function ( $query ) {
    global $wp_the_query;
    if($query === $wp_the_query && $query->is_search() && !is_admin()) {
        $tax_query = array(
            array(
                'taxonomy' => 'your_custom_tax_name',
                'field' => 'slug',
                'terms' => 'hidden',
                'operator' => 'NOT IN',
            )
        );
        $query->set( 'tax_query', $tax_query );
    }
});

Answer 2

For the sake of anyone else searching for a solution i used the SearchWP plugin to exclude these posts.