How can I set a page to be excluded from search results?

[John Jaymes]

I am using my confluence instance (one is OnDemand, I have another version that I host myself) as a policy library. I have previous (old and no longer in force) policies posted for continuity (they have to be accessible) but I want to keep these individual pages from showing up in search results, which creates user confusion about which policies are current and which are not. Is there some way to set a given page (or attachment) to be excluded from search results?

[Dave · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

If you mean results from search engines, you would only be able to do this in the instance you host internally, as it requires access to the file system. You can set a robots.txt file that will tell Search Engine spiders what they can and cannot index. In addition, for existing pages, you should be able to request they be removed from the existing index - at least Google allows this.

If you want to restrict the pages from a Confluence search, you would need to actually restrict the pages as mentioned above, or find a plugin that can do it for you (also not available in OnDemand).

Best,

-dave

[JoeyA]

Hi John

If the users don't need to see the archived results ever then you could view restrict the pages that you don't want showing up in search. This will mean, however, the users will never be able to see the pages (even via direct url navigation) until the restrictions have been lifted.

Do you know how to restrict pages? If not, I can include more instructions in my answer. The best way to add restrictions will depend on the structure of the pages you want hidden.

[Bruno Rosa]

John, I'm afraid this won't be possible to achieve on Confluence OnDemand. I say OnDemand because as far as I know, by default, Confluence indexes everything it can read and there is no possibility to exclude a page or specific pages from being indexed. However, if there is a way to do that, it would be possible on a Confluence Self-hosted environment. I can't guarantee it's possible, however since the self-hosted environment is highly customisable and you are free to install any plugin you want, your best bet to achieve this, would be it.

Cheers,

Bruno Rosa