Hi,
1. This option is to exclude items belonging to specific categories.
May I ask which results is the one you don’t want to see in the results list?
2. I guess those are very likely coming from the “You may also find these helpful” modules: https://i.imgur.com/ZxMbviq.png
I have added the module shortcode under the exceptions on the index table settings, hopefully that text is not going to be excluded.
Also, your keyword logic was not set correctly, because the “OR with exact keyword matches” will display results matching any of the keywords. I have corrected that too.
