MsDeploySkipRules being ignored on project publish - visual-studio-2019

Question

I want to exclude ALL files & folders in wwwroot\data from being published to my website folder. The files in my website folder are the latest copy and should never be overwritten when I publish the project.
Reference Microsoft documentation
The documentation indicates using this xml in .csproj file but I can't get it to work. I've tried putting this in both my .csproj file and .pubxml with no success.
What am I doing wrong? Can someone tell me if this actually works?
<ItemGroup>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="CustomSkipFolder">
<ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>wwwroot\\data</AbsolutePath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>
Here is my .pubxml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<PropertyGroup>
<DeleteExistingFiles>False</DeleteExistingFiles>
<ExcludeApp_Data>False</ExcludeApp_Data>
<LaunchSiteAfterPublish>True</LaunchSiteAfterPublish>
<LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration>
<LastUsedPlatform>Any CPU</LastUsedPlatform>
<PublishProvider>FileSystem</PublishProvider>
<PublishUrl>C:\www\VisualStudio2019-Core3</PublishUrl>
<WebPublishMethod>FileSystem</WebPublishMethod>
<SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish />
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.1</TargetFramework>
<ProjectGuid>881d6bfb-ed04-41d7-b600-0e26765ff90e</ProjectGuid>
<SelfContained>false</SelfContained>
</PropertyGroup>
Tried putting code here -->>
</Project>
Here is my .csproj file:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
<PropertyGroup>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.1</TargetFramework>
<RootNamespace>VisualStudio2019_Core3</RootNamespace>
<UserSecretsId>93d2ec1f-4bcc-4aa5-ad65-4bdbdce5690a</UserSecretsId>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.NewtonsoftJson" Version="3.1.3" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.SpaServices.Extensions" Version="3.1.5" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design" Version="3.1.2" />
<PackageReference Include="Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.Core" Version="2.19.60" />
</ItemGroup>
Tried putting code here -->>
</Project>
Additional information:
Visual Studio 2019
Web Application Core 3.1
Publishing via Studio menus...not command line.

Answer 1

I used this (referring to my webapp) after end tag PropertyGroup
<ItemGroup>
<Content Remove="appsettings.Development.*" />
<Content Remove="bundleconfig.json" />
<Content Remove="wwwroot\js\Site.js" />
<Content Remove="wwwroot\js\webcam-easy.js" />
<Content Remove="wwwroot\js\webcam-app.js" />
<Content Remove="wwwroot\css\Site.css" />
<Content Update="wwwroot\js\Site.js" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
<Content Update="wwwroot\js\webcam-easy.js" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
<Content Update="wwwroot\js\webcam-app.js" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
<Content Update="wwwroot\css\Site.css" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
<ResolvedFileToPublish Include="wwwroot\css\xxxxx.min.css">
<RelativePath>wwwroot\css\xxxxx.min.css</RelativePath>
</ResolvedFileToPublish>
<ResolvedFileToPublish Include="wwwroot\js\xxxxx.min.js">
<RelativePath>wwwroot\js\xxxxx.min.js</RelativePath>
</ResolvedFileToPublish>
<MsDeploySkipRules Include="connectionconfig">
<ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
<AbsolutePath>connection.json</AbsolutePath>
</MsDeploySkipRules>
</ItemGroup>