Excluding articles from search engines

To manage the visibility and confidentiality of your content, you can easily exclude certain articles or category pages from search engine results using Document360. This helps in ensuring the sensitive or internal content remains private and not publicly searchable.

Why search visibility control matters

Not every article in your knowledge base is meant for everyone — or for the public internet. A troubleshooting guide for internal agents looks very different from a polished help article for end customers. Without the ability to control what gets indexed and surfaced, you risk:

• Exposing internal content publicly. Articles written for support agents, administrators, or internal teams may contain pricing guidelines, escalation procedures, or operational details you don't want competitors or customers to find via Google.

• Polluting AI search results. If your Eddy AI assistant surfaces draft articles, deprecated content, or agent-only instructions in response to a customer's question, it damages trust and creates confusion.

• Cluttering the knowledge base search. Staging articles, templates, or placeholder pages that appear in search results frustrate users who are trying to find real answers.

Document360 gives you three independent controls to handle these scenarios precisely.

Excluding articles from external search engines

1. Navigate to Documentation () in the left navigation bar in the Knowledge base portal.

2. In the left navigation pane, navigate to the desired article or page category you want to exclude from search results.

3. Click the More (•••) icon in the article header and select SEO.  

   The Article settings panel appears.

4. In the SEO tab, select the Exclude from external search engine results checkbox.

5. Click Save to apply the changes.

By following these steps, you can include/exclude articles from the external search results.

Excluding articles from Search results and Eddy AI assistive search

NOTE

For users on the new pricing plan, AI search suite is available for Business and Enterprise plans. For legacy (old plan) users, only customers who have purchased Eddy AI assistive search as an add-on will have Exclude from Eddy AI assistive search toggle.

1. Navigate to Documentation () in the left navigation bar in the Knowledge base portal.

2. In the left navigation pane, navigate to the desired article.

3. Click the More (•••) icon in the article header and select More article options.

4. In the Article settings panel, go to Search Visibility section.  

5. In the Search visibility, select the desired options:

   1. Click Exclude from the knowledge base search checkbox to excludes articles from search results within the knowledge base site.

   2. Click Exclude from Eddy AI assistive search checkbox to excludes articles from Eddy AI assistive search results within the knowledge base site.

NOTE

You can exclude articles from Eddy AI Assistive Search only if you have purchased the Eddy AI Suite.

6. Click Save to save the changes.

NOTE

The article will still be accessible via the URL or navigation menu even after configuring it to be excluded from Knowledge Base searches and Eddy AI searches.

The three controls and when to use each

1. Exclude from external search engines (Google, Bing, etc.)

This adds a noindex directive to the article page, telling web crawlers not to include it in public search results. The article remains fully accessible — anyone with the link or who navigates your knowledge base can still read it — but it won't appear in a Google search.

Use this when:

• The article contains internal pricing, SLAs, or agent workflows.

• You're publishing a partner-only or login-gated article that shouldn't rank publicly.

• You want to soft-launch content without it being indexed prematurely.

Example: Your support team has a detailed article titled "Refund Approval Thresholds by Customer Tier." It's critical for agents, but you don't want customers searching "refund policy [your company]" and finding it — leading to incorrect expectations or disputes.

2. Exclude from knowledge base search

This removes the article from internal search results within your knowledge base site. Visitors browsing or searching your help center won't find it through the search bar. The article is still reachable via direct URL or navigation menus.

Use this when:

• An article is under review or being updated and shouldn't surface until it's ready.

• You have duplicate or superseded articles you haven't yet deleted.

• A page exists for structural/navigation reasons but contains no standalone value.

Example: You have a "Coming Soon" placeholder article under a new product category. You want the category visible in navigation, but don't want the placeholder appearing in search results and confusing users looking for real documentation.

3. Exclude from Eddy AI assistive search

This specifically prevents Eddy AI from retrieving and citing the article when answering user questions. This is separate from the knowledge base search — Eddy AI has its own index, and content that's fine to browse manually may still be inappropriate for AI-generated answers.

Use this when:

• The article contains nuanced policy information that requires human judgment to interpret.

• The content is outdated but hasn't been deleted yet — AI might confidently surface stale information.

• The article is written for agents and uses language or assumptions that would be confusing or misleading to customers.

Example: You have a legacy billing article that applies only to customers on a pre-2022 plan. It's kept for reference, but you don't want  AI recommending it to new customers asking about billing.

Things to know

Cloned articles inherit these settings. If you clone an article that's excluded from Eddy AI search, the clone starts with the same exclusion applied. Review the clone's settings if you intended it to be visible.

Hidden articles are excluded by default. If an article's status is set to Hidden, it is automatically excluded from both knowledge base search and Eddy AI — regardless of what's checked in Search Visibility. Configuring search visibility is most relevant for published articles you want to keep discoverable in some channels but not others.

These controls are independent. You can, for example, exclude an article from external search engines (so Google won't index it) while keeping it fully visible in your knowledge base search and Eddy AI. Mix and match based on your audience and content sensitivity.