exclude categories from search results

In case it helps someone else, this was a much easier fix than I thought. I simply added the category ids to exclude to the query_posts argument, e.g., query_posts("s=$s&cat=-415,-504&posts_per_page=-1");

Hata!: SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'divattrend_liink'@'localhost' (using password: YES)