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🔗 Exclude URL Patterns and Manage Subdomains in SearchAtlas

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Camilo Aponte

Camilo Aponte

Last updated on Sep 30, 2026

🗺️ Overview

SearchAtlas gives you precise control over which URLs appear in your dashboards and reports. Using the URL Exclusion Conditions feature inside OTTO Settings, you can filter out URLs that are not relevant to your SEO analysis — such as thank-you pages, admin paths, or staging URLs. Additionally, SearchAtlas treats subdomains as separate projects by default, which is important to understand when reviewing your data.

⚙️ Where to Find URL Exclusion Conditions

  1. Log in to your SearchAtlas account.
  2. Navigate to OTTO Settings from the left-hand sidebar.
  3. Select the project you want to configure.
  4. Scroll to the URL Exclusion Conditions section.
  5. Click Add Condition to begin entering your exclusion rules.

✍️ How to Write URL Exclusion Patterns

URL exclusion conditions use a wildcard syntax based on the asterisk character (*). The asterisk matches any sequence of characters within a URL segment. This allows you to write flexible rules that catch multiple URL variations with a single pattern.

Use the following format when entering patterns:

  • Exact path exclusion: Enter the full path, for example /thank-you, to exclude that specific page.
  • Wildcard prefix match: Use /blog/* to exclude all URLs that begin with /blog/, such as /blog/post-1 and /blog/category/news.
  • Wildcard suffix match: Use *?ref=email to exclude any URL containing that query string parameter, regardless of the path.
  • Full wildcard: Use */admin/* to exclude any URL that contains /admin/ anywhere in the path.
  • File type exclusion: Use *.pdf to exclude all URLs ending in .pdf across your entire domain.

Patterns are matched against the full URL path and query string. Matching is not case-sensitive, so /Contact and /contact are treated identically.

📋 Common Exclusion Pattern Examples

  • /cart — Excludes the shopping cart page only.
  • /checkout/* — Excludes all checkout step pages.
  • *?sessionid=* — Excludes URLs with dynamic session ID parameters.
  • /wp-admin/* — Excludes all WordPress admin URLs.
  • */print/* — Excludes print-version pages anywhere on the site.
  • *.jpg — Excludes direct links to image files.

💾 Saving and Applying Your Exclusions

  1. After entering each pattern, click Add to confirm the rule.
  2. Repeat for each additional pattern you want to exclude.
  3. When all patterns are entered, click Save Settings.
  4. SearchAtlas will apply your exclusion rules to new data going forward. Historical data already processed may require a recrawl to reflect the updated exclusions — use the Recrawl option within your project settings if needed.

🌐 How Subdomains Are Handled in SearchAtlas

By default, SearchAtlas treats each subdomain as a separate, independent project. This means that blog.yourdomain.com, shop.yourdomain.com, and yourdomain.com are each tracked and reported on individually — they do not share data within the same dashboard unless explicitly configured together.

Key points to understand about subdomain handling:

  • Subdomains are not automatically included in a root domain project. You must add each subdomain as its own project if you want to monitor it.
  • Google Search Console data is pulled per property. If your GSC property is set to the root domain (domain property), subdomain data may be included. If it is a URL-prefix property, only that specific subdomain or path is covered.
  • Backlink and keyword data is scoped to the project URL you define at setup. A project for yourdomain.com will not automatically surface data for shop.yourdomain.com.
  • URL exclusion conditions are project-specific. Patterns you configure for one project do not carry over to a subdomain project — you must configure exclusions independently for each.

🔄 Editing or Removing Existing Exclusion Rules

  1. Go to OTTO Settings and open the relevant project.
  2. Scroll to URL Exclusion Conditions.
  3. Find the pattern you want to update or remove.
  4. Click the pencil icon to edit or the trash icon to delete the rule.
  5. Click Save Settings to confirm your changes.

💡 Tips for Effective URL Exclusion

  • Start broad and refine. Test a wildcard pattern against a small set of known URLs before applying it to avoid accidentally excluding important pages.
  • Exclude paginated URLs such as *?page=* if pagination creates duplicate content noise in your reports.
  • Review your exclusion list periodically as your site structure changes — outdated rules can hide content you now want to track.
  • Use exclusions alongside your crawl settings for the most precise control over what SearchAtlas indexes and reports on.

🆘 Need Help?

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.