Can I restrict Google or other search engines from indexing my help center?

Question

How can I restrict Google from indexing my help center? I have a FAQ on Zendesk I don't want to see or find on search engines.

Answer

If your help center requires users to sign in to view its content, search engines do not index the page by default.

However, if anyone can view your help center without signing in (it's a public help center),  you must add a noindex meta tag to the theme code. This prevents articles from appearing in search engine results.

To restrict the indexation of your public help center:

In Knowledge admin, click the Customize design icon ( ) in the sidebar.

Click the theme to open it.

Click Edit code and select document_head.hbs.

Enter the line of code as shown below:



Click Publish.

Note: The Google crawler and other internet spiders update indexing in an automated queue. Google handles the indexing or unindexing of public online pages. After you add the noindex tag to the source code, the unindexing process can take months. This timeline is independent of the platform.