---
title: "Public and private links"
description: "Which share links search engines may index, how a document becomes public or private, and what the share page shows a crawler."
canonical: "https://everypage.co/docs/sharing/public-and-private-links"
plan: "free"
last-updated: "2026-11-10"
---

# Public and private links

Every EveryPage share link opens for anyone who has it. Whether search engines may also *list* it is a separate, per-document setting, and the plan decides the starting point.

## What the plan decides

| Plan | New documents start | Can change it |
|---|---|---|
| Free, and uploads without an account | **Public**: search engines may index the share page | No |
| Basic and Pro | **Private**: search engines are told not to list it | Yes, per document |

This applies to documents uploaded from 10 November 2026. Every document that existed before then stays private, whatever the plan.

A document keeps its setting when the plan changes. Moving from Pro to Free does not publish anything: a document that was private stays private (and a Free owner cannot make it public). A document an owner made public stays public after a downgrade, too.

Paid plans on trial terms count as their plan: a Basic or Pro trial's uploads start private.

## Changing it

Open the document's **Configure & share** page, then the **Privacy & Access** tab. Under **Search engines**, switch **Let search engines index this document** on or off. The change applies to the next crawl. On Free the switch is shown but cannot be changed.

Through the API, the same control is the `searchPublic` field on `PUT /api/v1/files/{uuid}/settings` (see [API keys](https://everypage.co/docs/developers/api-keys) and the [OpenAPI description](https://everypage.co/openapi.json)); the document record reports both `searchPublic` (your setting) and `searchIndexable` (whether a crawler is told to index it right now).

## What keeps a public document out of the index

A public document is only listed while nothing stands between a reader and the first page. While any of these is set, search engines are told not to index it, and the Privacy tab says so:

- a password
- an email gate (with or without a lead-capture form)
- a view limit
- a page range

An expired, burned or deleted document is never listed, nor is a document paused for review, nor any document whose owner's account is suspended. Hosted HTML sites are never listed. Per-recipient [link variants](https://everypage.co/docs/sharing/link-variants) and embed URLs are never listed either: only the document's own share link can be.

## What a crawler sees

The share page of a public document carries an `index` robots directive, a canonical link to its share address (on `everypage.link`, or on your [custom domain](https://everypage.co/docs/sharing/custom-domains)), and a plain-text version of the document's title, page count, description and first-page preview for crawlers that do not run JavaScript. It also carries the "Shared with EveryPage" link, which Free documents always show. The share host publishes a sitemap of public documents at `https://everypage.link/sitemap.xml`.

Every other share page carries `noindex` in its page and in its response headers.

Readership is unaffected: a search visitor is a reader like any other, and the share page never reveals who else has read the document.

## Search engines keep their own copies

Search engines index on their own schedule. After a public document is made private, expires or is deleted, it can stay in results until the engine next visits and sees the change; EveryPage cannot remove it from an engine's index. If timing matters, set the document private before sharing it widely, or use a Basic or Pro plan, where new documents start private.