How to Exclude Pages from the WordPress Navigation Bar
Have you ever wanted to create pages in WordPress but don’t want them listed in the header or footer navigation areas? You still want the pages to be accessible, perhaps listed in the sidebar, so you don’t want to make them private. You can do this by excluding pages and I’ll show you how to do it.
I have seven pages on this site but only 4, plus the home page, are listed in the header and footer. None of these pages have privacy settings. The remaining three are listed in my sidebar as links rather than in a list of pages. Do you know which ones they are? They are Bookmarks, Friendfeed Lifestream, and RSS Stream.
Pages are displayed with the following code, which is generally used in the header, footer, or sidebar.
<?php wp_list_pages();?>
This will list all of your pages until you add conditions in between ‘()’. You need to use the exclude condition and find out what number ID each page has. The exclude code looks like
<?php wp_list_pages('exclude=17,38' ); ?>
You can see that you have added 'exclude=17,38' to the original
list pages code.
Of course, we need to locate the correct ID numbers for your pages.
Go to Manage > Pages and select the name of the page in which you would like to exclude. In the address bar of your web browser will be a URL that looks like the following.
http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/page.php?action=edit&post=96
The number at the end, 96, is the ID number for the page and is the number you will use in the exclude code. You can do this for each page that you want to exclude as long as you put a comma between the page numbers in the code.
Are there other tweaks that you would like to add to your list of pages? Ask me about them in the comments and I will answer your questions. Or if your comment really inspires me I will write an entire article about it :-)
photo credit: malias
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78 Responses to “How to Exclude Pages from the WordPress Navigation Bar”
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September 11, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Sweet! This is a great tip. I’ve been messing with this on my personal blog for a while now.
September 11, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I have a question: I would like to move my Legal page so that instead of appearing as a page on the sidebar (in the Wordpress theme that I’m using, my pages are listed on the sidebar) it shows as a link on the footer. How do I do that?
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Almost-Wordless Wednesday: Correct Your Nose Without Operation!
September 11, 2008 at 6:03 pm
@Mark – Thanks! I’m glad that you found the article useful.
@Vered – If you follow the instructions in the article, you can exclude the legal page from your sidebar. In the Manage > Pages there is a section called Permalink right below the title. This is the link that you would use in the footer. You could edit the footer page in the theme editor and add a legal link maybe where you have the Wordpress and theme information.
If you want to discuss further, send me an email. kwbridge at gmail.com.
Feel free to email me anytime, Vered.
September 12, 2008 at 12:27 am
Thanks Kim!
I will give it a try and email you if I get into trouble. :)
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Almost-Wordless Wednesday: Correct Your Nose Without Operation!
September 12, 2008 at 12:37 am
Great!
I know that I’m a backup nag but make sure you make a copy of the templates before you make any changes. I’ve learned that the hard way – repeatedly – lol. :-)
September 12, 2008 at 12:46 am
Done!
Thank you so much – I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time now and wasn’t sure how.
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Almost-Wordless Wednesday: Correct Your Nose Without Operation!
September 12, 2008 at 12:46 am
And I always backup before making changes – learned the hard way too. :)
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Almost-Wordless Wednesday: Correct Your Nose Without Operation!
September 12, 2008 at 1:22 am
It looks great, Vered!! I’m so glad I was able to help.
September 12, 2008 at 3:26 pm
This is a useful tip. I have bookmarked it for later use
Madhur Kapoor’s last blog post – Create Anti-Pixel buttons Easily with ACA 80X15 Brilliant Button Maker
September 12, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hi Madhur – Great! I’m glad you found it useful.
September 12, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I wondered about this. Geez, Kim you did it again. Taught me something new! Thank you! I want my pics to look so nice. You blogged about this, right. Yes. Okay, I’ll find it.
Sommer-Green and Clean Mom’s last blog post – Time Managment Gone Green with Qlubb
September 13, 2008 at 1:02 am
Hi Sommer – I love the new photo of you!
I’m glad this article is useful to you. It’s rapidly becoming popular. Let me know how it goes.
Are you referring to the article where I talk about framing images for each post? That is at http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/2008/09/08/how-to-frame-images-in-wordpress-posts-with-css/
October 2, 2008 at 12:42 am
Thank you for this information. It’s the best description of this that I’ve found. (And I’ve really been looking.)
All I have to do now is to find the right place for the code in my theme.
Thanks!
October 2, 2008 at 8:49 am
Hi Lynn,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I’m so glad that you found this helpful. Many articles on these topics make it overally complicated so one of my goals is to write the tip in regular language.
October 6, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Hi Kim,
Right now I’m trying to incorporate the exclude code with this:
I thought of just including a separate set of quotation marks with your exclude code in them, but that gave me parsing errors. A separate set of brackets with the quotation marks with the exclude code gave me another error. Any suggestions?
Yours,
Benny
October 6, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Okay, I’ve included the exclude code within the one set of quotation marks, and there it excludes everything except for the about page, even if I use the ID for the one page I want to exclude. I subscribed to your RSS feed by the way :) Thanks again for posting this – it has given me a direction.
b
Ben McFarlane’s last blog post – Make Your Mixes Wider than Ever
October 6, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Hi Ben,
Thanks for visiting, commenting and subscribing :-)
I’m sorry that you are having trouble with the exclude code – it’s usually one tiny little thing that keeps these things from working,
It does have to be in single quotes and each page you want excluded needs to have the page ID number with a comma between.
If you want post the code here and I will take a look at it. Leave off the beginning and ending bracket and question mark or it won’t display properly in the comment. Or feel free to email it to me at kim.woodbridge at gmail . com
October 6, 2008 at 8:36 pm
hehe… Thank you for a prompt response. Combined with your tip, I found my answer here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/202137
Ben McFarlane’s last blog post – Make Your Mixes Wider than Ever
October 6, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Awesome! I’m so glad you got it to work!
And the design of your site is great. Is it a custom theme or a modified one? It looks like it might be based off of Revolution …?
Please keep visiting :-)
October 6, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Ah thankyou! Yes, Revolution magazine with lots of TLC.
Ben McFarlane’s last blog post – Make Your Mixes Wider than Ever
October 17, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Hi Kim, this tip works great for me except that I already have a condition in that particular php operation:
I don’t know anything about php so I don’t know how to also call the ‘exclude’ condition. Various ways of combining both conditions in the same operation resulted in syntax errors. What’s the correct way of including both the title and exclude conditions?
thanks!’
October 17, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Whoops, I tried to post my existing code but I guess it wouldn’t let me. Here it is with some extra spaces:
October 17, 2008 at 7:14 pm
…arghh, no dice again. I guess I can’t post anything that looks like code. Anyway it’s this:
less-than symbol ?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=’); ?greater-than symbol
October 17, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Jon,
Sorry about the code problem. I will be sure to add instructions to this section. I have the following
< ?php wp_list_pages('depth=1&sort_column=menu_order&exclude=7,114&title_li=' . ('') . '' ); ?>I don’t totally understand the title_li part at the end but I do know that it works.
October 17, 2008 at 8:21 pm
It works! Thanks so much! :)
October 17, 2008 at 8:23 pm
@Jon Yay! :-)
October 19, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Somehow, NONE of the templates for my theme contain that string.
I can’t — for the life of me — figure out where it is.
However, I found this plugin, which does in fact work with the latest version of WP (2.6.2).
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/
Thanks for this article though! =]
October 20, 2008 at 9:00 am
@Nick – Strange – I wonder how your pages are being displayed. I’m glad you found a solution to do the job for you.
November 11, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Hey Kim, i have a little problem with my code, and you seem to be the perfect person to help me.
My code is displayed like this :
And I want to exclude the page 22. Where should I try to put the exclude code, because everything seems to be wrong.
Thanks a lot and thank you for this tip.
November 11, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Hi Ajax,
I sent you an email because the code didn’t show up in the comment. I hope that helped. (I really need to provide instructions for the comments).
November 21, 2008 at 7:52 am
You so rock…. seriously!
November 21, 2008 at 9:40 am
Hi Brad – Thanks for visiting and commenting. And thanks!
December 5, 2008 at 1:22 am
Thank you so much! A crystal clear tutorial :)
Raju´s last blog post – Very IMP: Any Problem with TechPP Theme?
December 5, 2008 at 8:33 am
@Raju – Great! I hope it works out for you.
January 4, 2009 at 1:32 pm
This article was so great and helpful it was featured on the imake website!
Pete´s last blog post – How to exclude pages from a Wordpress navigation bar list
January 7, 2009 at 6:38 pm
@Pete – Thank you for visiting and commenting. I have sent you an email about that article.
January 13, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Hi Kim,
THanks for these great tips! I did add your code, as I too was in need of having pages not connected to the menu bar, but I found an interesting by-product – my sub- pages are no longer showing as a pull down off the menu (prior to making the code change, when I selected my “services” menu item, a drop down list showed up of all the sub-pages – but no longer).
Thoughts?
Thanks!
Rodney
Rodney´s last blog post – Innovation
January 14, 2009 at 6:35 am
@Rodney – Thank you for visiting and commenting.
Do you use a script to make the dropdowns work? So far, all I can come up with is that there is a conflict between the script and the code.
January 19, 2009 at 1:58 pm
A bit of a late reply, but the PageMash plugin is indispensible. It allows you to easily add or remove pages from within your WordPress admin area. No need to dig in code.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagemash/
Shirley´s last blog post – Choosing the Best Location for Your New Blog
January 19, 2009 at 4:56 pm
@Shirley – I’ve heard PageMash is a great plugin. I’d rather add the code but I think the plugin would really suit a lot of users.
March 12, 2009 at 3:52 pm
my navigation php looks like this:
get_results(’select ID, post_title from ‘. $wpdb->posts .’ where post_status = “publish” and post_type = “page” order by ID’);
}
return $these_pages;
}
function list_all_pages(){
$all_pages = get_the_pa_ges ();
foreach ($all_pages as $thats_all){
$the_page_id = $thats_all->ID;
if (is_page($the_page_id)) {
$addclass = ‘ class=”current_page”‘;
} else {
$addclass = ”;
}
$output .= ‘ID).’” title=”‘.$thats_all->post_title.’”>’.$thats_all->post_title.’‘;
}
return $output;
}
?>
<?php
if (is_home()) {
$addclass = ‘ class=”current_page”‘;
} else {
$addclass = ”;
}
echo “Home“;
echo list_all_pages();?>
where i should add the exclude pages….i am not expert with php :P
thanks
March 12, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Hi Eve,
Your pages are being listed using a function rather than the standard
code. Are you using a premium theme? If so, does it have an options are
to set the pages? I don’t actually know how to exclude pages from that
function.
March 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
it is a template from
http://www.dailyblogtips.com/category/wordpress/
i also confuse how to change the page listing. The code is really different there.
I like this template because i can add banners at different pages…but they have different code than the one you mention :P
March 14, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Hi Eve – I’m not sure. Have you tried asking the theme developer
how to do this?
March 15, 2009 at 3:50 am
yes, i already ask them, they do not reply yet :)
I must choose different theme, the problem is i am not a pro with modifying css, so i don;t know how to add banner place at the top of my blog and also the sidebar. (this is the very reason i choose this theme although their coding is very weird :P).
You have tutorial for that?
thanks for your kind care and reply, i am your fans now LOL
March 19, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Great post. It was exactly what I was looking for, and your suggestion worked. Thanks again Kim.
Kraig Grayson´s last blog post – Suppliers offering periodical subscriptions on the Internet
March 19, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Hi Kraig – Great! I’m glad it worked for you.
March 23, 2009 at 6:16 am
Thank you, thank you! Your Oct. 17 comment did the trick.
Monica´s last blog post – Easy pillow cover with zipper
March 23, 2009 at 6:38 am
Hi Monica,
Great! I’m glad you got it to work.
March 25, 2009 at 12:42 am
Thanks for the method! You saved someone a headache tonight =]
March 25, 2009 at 6:56 am
Hi Dan – I’m glad it helped you out. :-)
June 1, 2009 at 11:44 pm
On-the-spot answer to my question. Thanks also to the commenters. Your inputs made it even clearer for a newbie such as I am.
moralde´s last blog post – Great Tinyurl Alternative: Pretty Link Plugin
June 2, 2009 at 11:00 am
Hi Moralde – Thanks for visiting and commenting. I’m really glad the
article helped you out :-)
June 11, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Hi Kim,
excuse my very silly question, but php code is a bit new to me.
what file am I adding the above exception code too:
I have looked through header.php, themes.php, and others and can not see what you are referring too.
Thanks for your help :)
June 12, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hi Tammy,
The code should be in header.php I have found, however, that some themes call a function in the header and that the code is located in the functions.php file instead.
June 12, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Kim,
Awesome! I will have a look in the function.php file and let you know.
Cheers,
Tammy
Tammy´s last blog post – Therapy Is My Passion Not my Job
June 18, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Hi Kim,
Sorry for the delay. I finally found the code you mentioned in the header.php file – Thanks
However I get errors when I add the exclude code
1. when I add it like this
I get this error: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘(‘ in /home3/normquan/public_html/wp-content/themes/1729/CB-Outdoors/header.php on line 33
2. when I add it like this
I get this error: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING in /home3/normquan/public_html/wp-content/themes/1729/CB-Outdoors/header.php on line 33
Thanks for your help.
Tammy
Tammy´s last blog post – An Illustration of Power Differential between Men and Women
June 18, 2009 at 3:06 pm
opps I forgot to add the code correctly in the post.
however I think Jon's post from earlier was actually my solution. I was trying to add another set of ()
Thanks Jon!
Thanks again Kim for offering this solution.
Tammy´s last blog post - An Illustration of Power Differential between Men and Women
June 18, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Hi Tammy – I’m glad you got it to work before I had a chance
to reply :-) Sometimes when you copy and paste code from a site you need to retype the single quotes – at least I’ve run into
that problem.
June 29, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I could not get the exclude to work properly? Possibly because of this ———> <————–
Here is one of the ways I tried it below. Still doesn’t work right.
<a href=”">Home
Ocean Rock Properties´s last blog post – Life on Kauai by Natasha Shumate
August 10, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Thank you for the simple tutorial. I would have never figured this one out. Appreciated it!
Freddie Taylor´s last blog ..Balance Tv: Health is Wealth, Get Some and Pass It On!
August 11, 2009 at 7:08 am
Hi Freddie – Great! I’m glad it helped you out.
August 31, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Do you know of an easier way than include and exclude to create separate nav bars? I have a client’s site I’m working on with 4 main navigation buttons which are hard coded because they won’t change…and another nav area with global links to About, Contact, Employment, etc…If i use the include or exclude tags in the Global Links, then the client will have to open the header.php file if he adds pages himself, which I’m sure he will. Is there any way to use fields within the CMS to “assign” a page to a nav area? For instance, I’ve used a custom CMs where you could choose whether a page was a MAIN button or a UTILITY button…can WP be tweaked somehow to do the same thing in a way the client does NOT have to open PHP files? Thanks for any advise!
August 31, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Hi Marion – in this instance you may be better off using a plugin like page mash
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pagemash/
September 5, 2009 at 12:46 am
Thanks! Nice, simple, easy to follow tutorial. Just what I was looking for.
Kerrin´s last blog ..Zen Cart Reference Book – The Ultimate Reference for Customising Zen Cart
September 7, 2009 at 8:53 am
Hi Kerrin – Thanks! Glad it helped.
October 10, 2009 at 4:27 am
Hi Kim,
So I’m working on my new project, and search for “wordpress exclude pages from navbar” and who holds the first position for that search string? You. How exciting.
Anyway, what you shared with Jon was just what I needed. At first I messed up and didn’t move the single quotation mark to the end and got a parsing error, but when I corrected my mistake, it worked perfectly.
You’re awesome Kim.
Thank you!
Barbara Swafford´s last blog ..Caution – Read At Your Own Risk
October 10, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Hi Barbara – I’m so excited my site actually came up first in a search result. And I’m so glad the article helped you out. Single and double quotes tend to be the bane of my existence ;-)
October 22, 2009 at 5:45 am
Excellent Tip!
If some one is not technical enough then they can use this plug-in as well,
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/
Thanks and keep posting such useful tips!
October 22, 2009 at 8:35 am
Hi – Yes, a lot of people use the plugin instead. Last night I made a number of pages that I didn’t want in my navigation bar and was almost wishing I used the plugin because I had to add so many pages to the exclude.
October 28, 2009 at 4:26 pm
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! This is exactly what I want to do next on my blog to unclutter it a bit.
Thanks!
You’re not too bad, ya know!
:)
Jannie Funster´s last blog ..Like a bord on a wire, 12 — Funny Typos
October 28, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Hi Jannie – LOL – This article is an oldie but it’s one my most popular. People want to know how to do this :-)
November 23, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Thank you for the awesome information on excluding pages. I’ve always wanted to know how to do this while still being able to keep pages in my sidebar, you rock. Keep doing your thing!
Matthew Neer
Matthew Neer´s last blog ..Your Only Milimeters Off…
November 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Hi Matthew – Thank you so much! I’m glad the tutorial helped :-)
December 4, 2009 at 5:52 am
Thank you so much for this information, it saved me from a lot of php-trouble ;-)!
December 4, 2009 at 7:13 am
Hi Karin – Thanks! I’m glad it helped :-)
December 29, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks a bunch Kim! I have been wanting to do this for awhile and haven’t found any way to do it. You’re clear instructions should make it a breeze. Thanks again!
Michael´s last blog ..Cisco Hardware to power 4G WiMax Networks
December 29, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Hi Michael – Great! I’m glad it helps.