Katalog Visibility for WooCommerce

Description

Katalog Visibility for WooCommerce gives store owners granular control over which product categories appear on the main Shop page — without affecting visibility anywhere else on the site.

Products in hidden categories remain fully accessible through:

  • Their own category archive pages (e.g. /product-category/wholesale/)
  • Direct product URLs
  • Search results (configurable)
  • Cart, checkout, and all other WooCommerce pages

Use Cases

  • Wholesale / trade-only products — keep them off the public Shop page but accessible via direct links shared with trade customers.
  • Coming soon collections — prepare categories ahead of launch without exposing them to casual shoppers.
  • Funnel-based selling — drive traffic to specific landing/category pages instead of the Shop page.
  • Members-only products — pair with the developer filter to show/hide categories based on user role.

Features

  • Multi-select category picker — searchable Select2 dropdown listing all product categories including nested subcategories.
  • Selective hiding — only the main Shop page is affected; category archives always show all their products.
  • Optional search exclusion — toggle to also hide selected categories from frontend search results.
  • Optional tag archive exclusion — toggle to also hide selected categories from product tag archive pages.
  • Per-product override — “Force show on Shop page” checkbox on individual products to override category-level hiding.
  • Debug logging — enable debug mode to log excluded category and product IDs to WooCommerce Status Logs.
  • Developer-friendlywsvc_hidden_categories filter allows programmatic control (e.g. role-based visibility).
  • Safe query merging — appends to existing tax_query without overriding other plugins’ filters.
  • HPOS compatible — fully compatible with WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage.
  • Lightweight — no external dependencies, no custom database tables, no frontend assets.

Developer Filter Example

Show hidden categories to wholesale users:

add_filter( 'wsvc_hidden_categories', function ( $hidden ) {
    if ( current_user_can( 'wholesale_customer' ) ) {
        $wholesale = get_term_by( 'slug', 'wholesale', 'product_cat' );
        if ( $wholesale ) {
            $hidden = array_diff( $hidden, array( $wholesale->term_id ) );
        }
    }
    return $hidden;
} );

Screenshots

Installation

  1. Download the plugin zip file.
  2. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins Add New Upload Plugin.
  3. Upload the zip file and click Install Now.
  4. Activate the plugin.
  5. Navigate to WooCommerce Settings Products Katalog Visibility.
  6. Select the categories you want to hide from the Shop page and save.

Alternatively, upload the extracted katalog-visibility-for-woocommerce folder to /wp-content/plugins/ via FTP and activate from the Plugins screen.

FAQ

Will hidden products still appear on their category pages?

Yes. Hiding only applies to the main Shop page. Category archive pages always display all their products normally.

Can I still link directly to a hidden product?

Yes. Direct product URLs are never affected. Hidden products remain fully accessible via their permalink.

Does this affect the admin dashboard or WooCommerce REST API?

No. Filtering only applies to frontend WooCommerce product queries. Admin, REST API, cart, and checkout are never modified.

Can I hide products from search results too?

Yes. Enable the “Also hide from search results” toggle in the settings.

Can I override hiding for a specific product?

Yes. Edit the product and check the “Shop Visibility Override” checkbox under the General tab. That product will appear on the Shop page even if its category is hidden.

Is this compatible with WooCommerce HPOS?

Yes. The plugin declares full compatibility with High-Performance Order Storage.

Does this work with other plugins that modify product queries?

Yes. The plugin safely merges its exclusion into the existing tax_query rather than replacing it, so other plugins’ query modifications are preserved.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Katalog Visibility for WooCommerce” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.0.0

  • Initial release.
  • Multi-select category hiding from Shop page.
  • Optional search result exclusion.
  • Optional product tag archive exclusion.
  • Per-product “Force show on Shop page” override.
  • Debug logging to WooCommerce Status Logs.
  • wsvc_hidden_categories developer filter.
  • HPOS compatibility declared.