Reply To: Trying to limit search results to posts within a single category

Hi Darlene,

It is possible, that items that does not belong to any given category, or does not have any associated taxonomy are showing up.
Make sure to disable this option as well: https://wp-dreams.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/18/admin/9815/admin/category-include-empty.png

Taken from this knowledge-base article: Searching within given categories/terms only