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SharePoint Online News Filtering: How to Filter News Posts in Communication sites

Introduction

One of the most effective methods to hand out updates, announcements, blogs, and stories throughout your company is through the News feature in present-day SharePoint Online. However, a lot of people only display kinds of news, like 

  • Post a blog. 

  • Updates particular to a department 

  • News about Projects 

  • Announcements 

This is when it gets helpful to filter the News web part section. 

We will guide you through the process of using page characteristics to filter SharePoint News, specifically the Page Category field. This method is fully supported by Microsoft.  

SharePoint Online News Filter Functionality 2025

Why Use SharePoint Online to Filter News? 

You benefit from filtering: 

  • Show off only relevant News posts. 

  • Organize content by categories. 

  • Create sections for your blog. 

  • Maintain a cleanup communication site. 

  • Improve information discoverability. 

You may filter News on any page by using information like Page Category. 

Requirements 

A communication site for SharePoint  

  • Modify the site's permissions. 

  • A few news articles have already been made. 

  • The ability to change the Site Page Library. 

Step 1: Establish a Page Category Column in the Site Pages Library 

  1. Navigate to your Communication Site. 

  2. Select Site contents. 

Access Site Pages, hover over it to see visible ellipses, then click on it to see "Setting." 

Site Pages → ellipses (…) → Settings

Click on the creating column and pick a choice type. 

Label the column as "Page Category." 

Add choice values such as: 

  • Blog 

  • Project Report 

  • Status Report 

  • General News 

  • General Page 

  • Announcement 

  • News 

If you want to set the default value, set it; otherwise, leave it blank. 

Enter the column name, select Choice as the type, add the choice values, set the default value, and click OK.

  • Click on the "OK" button to add column. 

Important: this column should be established within the Site Pages library – not within any other list or library. 

Step 2: Categorize Your News Posts using Page category 

Every News post needs to have a category assigned for filtering purposes. 

  1. Open any News Post. 

  2. Select Page details (located at the top-right). 

  3. Scroll down to page category. 

  4. Pick a value (for instance, blog). 

Publish or republish the page or automatically save the changes, so wait for it. 

Go to Site Pages, select the page, click the top-right corner icon to open Page Details, and update the Page Category value.

Step 3: Incorporate the News web part into your page. 

Navigate to the page where you wish to show filtered News. 

  1. Select Edit. 

  2. Click on the plus sign. 

  3. Looking for News. 

  4. Integrate the News web part. 

  5. Choose your preferred format (tiles, list, carousel, etc.).  

Note: If you have already been on your communication site, then skip the few steps. 

Step 4: Apply Filters to the News Web Part Based on Page Category. 

  1. Modify your page. 

  2. Highlight the News web part. 

Select the Edit web part option (pencil symbol). 

  • Scroll down to Filter. 

  • Pick Page properties. 

See the filter and select the

In the Property name section, choose: Page category. 

For Property Name, select the property named

In the value input field, type or select: Blog. 

Select the values; currently, only

  • Implement changes. 

  • Publish the page. 

Now, the News web part will exclusively show entries labeled as "blogs." 

Step 5: Create a Blog Section Utilizing News Filtering (optional). 

You can establish a specific blog page by using this filtered News web part. 

Example Configuration:  

  • Page category = Blog 

The news web part was adjusted to display solely blog entries. 

Here we get the result: after publishing the page, only

Unique banner, design, and navigation links. 

This provides a comprehensive blog experience within SharePoint Online. 

Step 6: Utilize the Page Category Column Across Various Sites: 

After establishing the Page Category column on one site, you are not required to set it up again on new sites. SharePoint enables the reuse of the column across different communication sites. This ensures uniformity in metadata and filters, eliminating the need to recreate the column from the beginning on each site. 

Instruction for Reusing the column 

  • Create a site column. 

  • Access site settings on the source site. 

  • Select site columns. 

  • Click create. 

  • Label the column (e.g,, Blog, Announcement). 

  • Once saved, this column will be available for reuse. 

  • Integrate the Site column into other sites. 

  • Navigate to site contents in the target site. 

  • Open site pages. 

  • Click add column – From existing site columns. 

  • Choose the Page Category column from the site column section. 

Now you can utilize this column for categorizing and filtering News entries on multiple sites. 

Note: When adding the column to a new site, it will inherit the options you established in the original site. 

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