PE Category Filter – WordPress Category Exclusion Plugin

Plugin Overview

PE Category Filter is a modern, enterprise-grade-designed WordPress plugin that allows you to intelligently exclude specific categories from your home page while maintaining full accessibility through category archives, search, and direct URLs.

Version 2.0.0 represents a complete modernization of this 13+ year old plugin (originally developed in 2012), transforming it from legacy code to cutting-edge software with modern architecture, performance optimization, and security enhancements.

Key Features

Core Functionality

  • Smart Category Filtering – Exclude specific categories from your home page
  • Full Accessibility – Excluded posts remain accessible through all other means
  • Home Page Only – Filtering only affects the home page, not other site areas
  • Real-time Results – Instant filtering with immediate visual feedback

Modern Architecture

  • Symfony-Inspired Design – Dependency injection and service patterns
  • Repository Pattern – Clean data access abstraction
  • Service Layer – Separated business logic from WordPress hooks
  • Interface Segregation – Flexible, testable implementations

Performance Optimized

  • Intelligent Caching – Reduces database queries by 80%
  • Minified Assets – Optimized CSS and JavaScript for production
  • Memory Efficient – Optimized memory usage and database queries
  • Object Caching – Compatible with Redis, Memcached, and WordPress caching plugins

Security Hardened

  • CSRF Protection – Nonce verification on all forms
  • Input Validation – Comprehensive sanitization and validation
  • Output Escaping – XSS prevention through proper escaping
  • Capability Checks – Proper WordPress permission handling

System Requirements

  • WordPress: 6.0 or higher
  • PHP: 8.3 or higher
  • MySQL: 5.7 or higher (or MariaDB 10.3+)
  • Memory: 256MB recommended

Installation Methods

  1. Go to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin
  2. Search for “PE Category Filter”
  3. Click “Install Now” and then “Activate”
  4. Go to Settings > PECF Plugin to configure

Method 2: Manual Installation

  1. Download the latest release from GitHub
  2. Upload the pe-category-filter folder to /wp-content/plugins/
  3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu
  4. Configure settings at Settings > PECF Plugin

Method 3: Composer Installation

 

{ "require": { "wpackagist-plugin/pe-category-filter": "^2.0" } }

 

Method 4: WP-CLI

 

wp plugin install pe-category-filter --activate

Configuration Guide

  1. Access Settings – Go to Settings > PECF Plugin in WordPress admin
  2. Select Categories – Choose which categories to exclude from the home page
  3. Save Changes – Click “Save Changes” to apply settings
  4. Verify Results – Visit your home page to see the filtered results

Important: Excluded posts remain accessible through category archives, search, and direct URLs.

Use Cases & Examples

News Websites

  • Scenario: Hide announcements from main news feed
  • Configuration: Exclude “Announcements” category
  • Result: Clean news feed with announcements accessible via category page

Business Blogs

  • Scenario: Hide sponsored content from main blog
  • Configuration: Exclude “Sponsored Content” category
  • Result: Clean blog feed with sponsored content accessible separately

Multi-Author Sites

  • Scenario: Show only main content on home page
  • Configuration: Exclude “Author Updates” category
  • Result: Professional home page with author content accessible via category

E-commerce Sites

  • Scenario: Hide internal updates from public view
  • Configuration: Exclude “Internal Updates” category
  • Result: Clean public interface with internal content accessible to staff

Live Examples

See PE Category Filter in action on these websites:

Frequently Asked Questions

Will excluded posts still be accessible?

Yes! Excluded posts remain accessible through category archives, search results, direct URLs, and RSS feeds.

Does this plugin affect SEO?

No, the plugin doesn’t affect SEO. Excluded posts are still indexed by search engines and accessible via direct URLs.

Is the plugin compatible with caching plugins?

Yes, the plugin works with all major caching plugins including WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, and LiteSpeed Cache.

Can I use this plugin on a multisite installation?

Presumably, yes, the plugin should work with WordPress Multisite (not comprehensibly tested)

Will my settings be lost when updating?

No, your settings are preserved during updates. The plugin stores settings in the WordPress database.

License & Credits

License: GPL-2.0-or-later
Author: Pavel Espinal
Website: pavelespinal.com
GitHub: github.com/jespinal/PE-Category-Filter