🗺️ Overview
Search Atlas gives you control over which URLs appear in your dashboards and reports. You can manually exclude specific URL patterns, and certain subdomains are handled automatically by the platform. This article explains both features so your data stays clean and relevant.
🚫 Excluding Specific URL Patterns
If you want to remove certain URLs or page types from your Search Atlas dashboards and reports, you can set up URL pattern exclusions. Common use cases include excluding thank-you pages, admin paths, staging directories, or any URLs that should not factor into your SEO analysis.
To exclude URL patterns from your reports, follow these steps:
- Log in to your Search Atlas account and navigate to the relevant project or dashboard.
- Open the Settings for that project.
- Locate the URL Exclusions or Filtered URLs section.
- Enter the URL pattern you want to exclude. You can use partial strings (for example, /thank-you/ or /staging/) to match multiple URLs at once.
- Save your changes. The exclusion will apply to new data refreshes going forward.
Note: URL exclusions affect how data is displayed in your dashboards. They do not prevent Search Atlas crawlers from visiting those URLs — they only filter the URLs out of your reports and metrics.
🌐 How Subdomains Are Handled
Search Atlas treats subdomains as separate entities from the root domain by default. This means blog.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com are tracked independently unless you configure them to be grouped together.
Here is what you need to know about subdomain behaviour:
- Automatic separation: Each subdomain you add as a project is tracked on its own. Metrics such as keyword rankings, backlinks, and site health scores are not combined with the root domain automatically.
- Search Atlas platform subdomains: Internal Search Atlas subdomains (for example, tool pages and application subdomains on searchatlas.com) are excluded from toolbar overlays and reporting features to avoid interference with your workflow.
- Robots.txt and crawlability: If you manage subdomain sites, make sure your robots.txt file is correctly configured. Misconfigured robots.txt files on subdomains can allow unintended crawling by search engines, which may affect your SEO data. Search Atlas surfaces crawl issues like this in your Site Audit reports.
- www vs. non-www: Search Atlas recognises www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com as different URLs. When connecting your site, use the version that matches your canonical domain consistently to avoid data discrepancies.
⚙️ Grouping Subdomains Under One Project
If you want to view a root domain and its subdomains together in a single project, you can add multiple properties to one project using the Add Property option within your project settings. This lets you monitor combined traffic and performance without losing the ability to filter by individual subdomain when needed.
🛠️ Troubleshooting Common Issues
Use the guidance below if you run into problems related to URL exclusions or subdomain handling:
- Excluded URLs still appearing in reports: Exclusions apply to new data after you save them. Historical data already in your dashboard may still show the excluded URLs until the next data refresh cycle.
- Subdomain data not showing up: Confirm the subdomain has been added as a tracked property in your project. Also verify that the subdomain is accessible and not blocked by robots.txt or a login wall.
- www subdomain causing connection errors: If you experience issues connecting your site when your URL includes www, ensure the URL entered in Search Atlas exactly matches your WordPress or CMS home URL setting, including the www prefix.
- Toolbar appearing on unintended pages: The Search Atlas SEO Toolbar is designed to exclude platform pages automatically. If the toolbar appears somewhere unexpected, refreshing the page or clearing your browser cache usually resolves this.
💡 Best Practices
- Decide on a consistent URL format (www or non-www, HTTP or HTTPS) before setting up your project to prevent duplicate tracking.
- Review your URL exclusion list periodically to make sure it reflects your current site structure.
- Use the Site Audit tool to check for robots.txt issues on all subdomains you manage.
- When in doubt about whether a subdomain should be a separate project or grouped with the root domain, consider your reporting goals — separate projects give more granular data, while grouped properties give a combined view.
🙋 Need More 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.