A public guide still carries the staging noindex

What to change

Ask for evidence from the published address, not the CMS setting alone. A staging restriction may be copied into the page or supplied by the host, so changing one checkbox can leave the other restriction active. The supplier should identify which layer introduced the exclusion, correct that layer and show that future public releases will not inherit the same setting.

A worked example

Illustrative example

Illustrative test: Compare a published guide with its protected preview; only the public version should permit indexing.

How to check the result

The production HTML and headers agree, while the preview remains appropriately restricted.

A mistake to avoid

Removing preview protection everywhere creates a different exposure problem.

Your action checklist

Use these checks to prepare a discussion with your team or supplier. Tick a check when you have recorded the decision or evidence, rather than when a feature has simply been promised.

Decisions to recordInspect the page source for a robots instruction inherited from staging.Ask the host whether an indexing restriction also appears in response headers.Correct the production setting and retest the same address outside the editor.

Evidence, open questions and decisionsNext action and responsible role

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