> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.use.observer/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Search engine settings

> Hide a status page from search results or set the description search engines and link previews show.

Public status pages can be found through search engines. Two settings
control how: one keeps the page out of search results, the other sets the
description shown under its title. Both live in the page editor's **Access**
section.

## Hide a page from search engines

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the access settings">
    In the console, open the page in the page editor and go to **Access**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Turn on Hide from search engines">
    Switch on **Hide from search engines**, then click **Save**.
  </Step>
</Steps>

A hidden page:

* tells search engines not to index it, through a `noindex` robots meta tag
  and an `X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow, noarchive` response header on
  every route of the page;
* is left out of the page's sitemap (`/sitemap.xml` returns no entries).

Visitors with the link still see the page as usual. Hiding is not access
control: to restrict who can open the page, change **Who can view this
page**. Search engines drop a page from results only after they next crawl
it, which can take days.

### Restricted pages are always hidden

Pages with any access mode other than **Public** (password, IP allowlist,
JWT, or customer-scoped) are always hidden from search engines, whatever the
switch says. The switch shows as on and cannot be changed for them. A
customer-scoped page also never puts its name in its title or link preview
before access is granted, since the name could reveal the customer.

## Set the search description

The search description is the text search engines and link previews (for
example in Slack, LinkedIn, or X) show under the page title.

When **Hide from search engines** is off on a public page, the **Access**
section shows **Search description**. Enter up to 300 characters; around 150
reads best in search results. Leave it empty to use the default, "Live
status and uptime for *page name*. Current service health, incident history,
and recent uptime.", which follows the [page language](/docs/guides/page-language).
A custom description is used as written, in every language.

## What gets indexed

For a public page that is not hidden, the sitemap lists two URLs: the status
page itself and its incident history (`/incidents`). The page's
`robots.txt` allows crawling of the page and blocks the per-visitor paths:
subscribe, confirm, unsubscribe, preferences, unlock, and the Reliability
Center's statement and access pages.

### Incident permalinks

Every incident and maintenance window has its own page at
`/incidents/<id>`. Notification emails, Slack and Teams messages, webhook
payloads, feed entries, and calendar events all link there, and search
engines can index these pages through the incident history. Each permalink
declares itself as its canonical URL.

### Paged history

The incident history shows the 50 most recent updates. **Older updates**
pages back through earlier ones with `/incidents?before=<timestamp>`. Every
history page declares `/incidents` as its canonical URL, so search engines
treat them as one page rather than many near-duplicates.

## Custom domains

When a page has an active custom domain, the custom domain is the canonical
home: the page's metadata points there, the custom domain's sitemap lists
the page, and the `use.observer` subdomain's sitemap lists nothing. The
**Hide from search engines** switch applies to both addresses. See
[Custom domain](/docs/guides/custom-domain).


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