Can I prevent a page from appearing in search results, while allowing its excerpt to be included?

[Michael Faux]

I'm using Confluence Cloud. I have a page where I keep an excerpt, and some text explaining what the excerpt is for, and when to use it.

Can I prevent this page from appearing in search results, while still allowing my excerpt to be included in other pages?

I've modified my question and description after @Darren's original comments. I'm writing about this here because Atlassian says I don't have enough 'points' to continue contributing to the conversation via comments.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You can't - the index itself contains information on who can see a page.  If a user can see a page, it is searchable for them, and you need them to be able to see it for excerpts to work for them.

[Stephen Deutsch]

One option is to put that page in an archived space. It will still be searchable if someone clicks the box for "Search Archived Spaces", but won't show up otherwise.

[Michael Faux]

Thanks Stephen. That's a nice work around for internal searching. Archived pages are still available to external search engines:

"Archiving a space has no effect on search results of external search engines. For example, a public space will still appear in Google search results."

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/archive-a-space-284368719.html

[darrenpegg]

Scrap using Excerpts altogether.. You can't have a half way house here unfortunately.. 

[darrenpegg]

Just allow yourself access to that Space/Page - it will show in the search for you but shouldn't be searchable by anyone with no access.  Try page restrictions 1st, if not create a space specifcally..