How to exclude content in a SharePoint 2007 site from being indexed by the search engine?

There are circumstances whereby content in a specific site needs to be excluded from the SharePoint 2007 search engine indexing process. This can be done at a list level and/or a site level.

 

 List level:

• Settings / List Settings
• Click on "Advanced Settings"
• At the very botton under "Search" set "Allow items from this list to appear in search results?" to "No"
• Click "OK" button

Site level:

• Site Actions / Site Settings
• under "Site Administration" click on "Search visibility"
• set "Allow this web to appear in search results?" to "No"
• Also choose "Never index any ASPX pages on this site" radio button
• Click "OK" button

Remember to reindex search results in central administration so that these new rules immediately take effect. One way to do this is as follows:

• On the SharePoint server, get into the "Central Administration" web application
• Click on the "Shared Services Administration" link on the left-hand-side
• Select "Open Shared Services Admin Site" from the dropdownlist of the default SSP site
• Click on "Search settings" link under "Search"
• Click on the link beside "Content sources:"
• Select "Start Full Crawl" from the dropdownlist of the content source