When adding your feed URL to FeedBurner, you may want to exclude some categories from your feed. A simple problem demands a simple solution.. but figuring out how to do it may not be obvious.

So how do you exclude categories from your feed when using FeedBurner?

The solution is easier than you might think…

Exclude Word Press Categories

We stumbled onto this little trick from jaypeeonline.net and decided to share it here.

First determine the post category you want to exclude by going to your admin panel and click on Posts > Categories, and then click the “edit” link. In the edit window, look at the URL in your browser URL bar to see the category ID. It should look something like this:

http://[yourdomain.com]/wp-admin/categories.php?action=edit&cat_ID=5

The ending number is the post category ID.

Now that you know the post ID, you can modify your feed URL to exclude it.

Original Feed URL:

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed/

Edit Feed URL to:

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed?cat=-5

Adding another category:

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed?cat=-5&cat=-6

Or try…

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed?cat=-5,-6

Sounds great, but what if we want to include a single category or certain categories in the feed and exclude the rest? Try the solution below.

Include Word Press Categories

Original Feed URL:

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed/

Edit Feed URL to:

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed?cat=5

Adding another category:

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed?cat=5&cat=6

Or try…

http://[yourdomain.com]/feed?cat=5,6

Just remove the “-” and your ready to go!