Fix · Google and sharing

I left "noindex" on after launch

Blocks your work

What you may see

My live pages tell search engines not to list them

Most likely cause

Staging sites are often set to hide from search engines, and the setting travels to the live site by mistake.

Check first (about two minutes)

Search the live HTML and response headers for noindex.

The fix prompt

What you type here never leaves your browser. The search runs on this page, and nothing is sent to a server or to an AI.

The exact error or what you see

What you did before it happened

Kept only in this browser, on this device. Keys and passwords are removed before anything is saved.

Prompt language

You are a senior engineer who knows search engines and link previews (Open Graph) and explains them to people who are not developers. I am not a developer, so explain every step in plain words and tell me exactly which button, menu or command you mean. If you are not sure about something, say so; do not guess.

THE PROBLEM
I left "noindex" on after launch

THE EXACT ERROR OR WHAT I SEE
[paste the exact error here]

WHAT I DID BEFORE IT HAPPENED
[write in a few words what you did before it happened]

MOST LIKELY CAUSE
Staging sites are often set to hide from search engines, and the setting travels to the live site by mistake.

DO THESE STEPS, IN THIS ORDER
1. Check meta robots tags, the X-Robots-Tag header, and robots.txt on the live domain.
2. Make indexing depend on the environment: off for previews and staging, on for the live domain, set in ONE place.
3. After deploy, tell me how to re-check in the webmaster tool.
Stop and tell me if what you see does not match a step. Do not skip ahead.

CHECK THAT IT WORKED
- The live page has no noindex and robots.txt allows the pages I want listed, while previews still hide.
Tell me exactly what I should see on the screen when it works.

DO NOT CHANGE
- Do not make previews public to search engines.
- Anything I did not ask about: the design, the text, other pages, other settings or the data.
- Do not delete files, data or branches, do not reset or force-push, and do not rewrite history, unless you first show me exactly what would be lost and I say yes.
- Do not paste, print or ask me to paste a password or secret key into this chat. If one is needed, tell me which settings page of the right service to store it in.

WHEN YOU FINISH
Explain in simple words what you changed (file by file or setting by setting), why you changed it, and how I can undo it.

Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Cursor, then follow what it says.

After you tried it, did it work?

Steps

Check meta robots tags, the X-Robots-Tag header, and robots.txt on the live domain.
Make indexing depend on the environment: off for previews and staging, on for the live domain, set in ONE place.
After deploy, tell me how to re-check in the webmaster tool.

Do not do this

Do not use robots.txt as security.
Do not make previews public to search engines.

Fix it My site does not appear on Google

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