# SEO

> Control indexing, metadata, sitemaps, and structured data

Docs7 automatically generates search metadata for your website.

## Defaults

Every indexable page receives:

- a canonical URL based on the deployed site URL
- a meta description from frontmatter or the page's opening text
- Open Graph and Twitter metadata with a generated preview image
- JSON-LD for the organization, website, page, breadcrumbs, and article
- a sitemap entry with the last modification date when Git history provides one

Docs7 also generates `robots.txt` and `sitemap.xml`. The generated robots file sets `Content-Signal: ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes`. 

Preview deployments are automatically excluded from indexing.

API pages use `APIReference` structured data. Other documentation pages use `Article` and `TechArticle` to make it easy for agents to parse your content.

## Configure site metadata

Set shared SEO values in `docs.json`:

```json docs.json
{
  "name": "Acme Docs",
  "seo": {
    "indexing": "navigable",
    "trailingSlash": false,
    "metatags": {
      "canonical": "https://docs.acme.com",
      "robots": "index, follow",
      "og:site_name": "Acme Docs"
    },
    "organization": {
      "name": "Acme",
      "url": "https://acme.com",
      "sameAs": ["https://github.com/acme"]
    }
  }
}
```

`seo.indexing` accepts:

- `navigable`, the default, which indexes pages listed in navigation and excludes hidden or unlisted pages
- `all`, which indexes every routable page unless the page sets `noindex: true`

A hidden navigation group can opt back in with `searchable: true`.

<Note>
If the site is mounted at a path such as `example.com/docs`, the parent website's root `robots.txt` controls crawler policy. Add `Sitemap: https://example.com/docs/sitemap.xml` there. Crawlers do not treat `/docs/robots.txt` as the origin's robots file.
</Note>

Set page-specific values in frontmatter:

```yaml
---
title: Create an API key
description: Create and rotate API keys for the Acme API
keywords:
  - API key
  - authentication
image: /images/api-key-card.png
canonical: https://docs.acme.com/auth/api-keys
---
```

Use `noindex: true` to keep a routable page out of search results. You can also set a `robots` value or `og:*`, `twitter:*`, and `article:*` fields directly in frontmatter.

<Note>
A `robots.txt` or `sitemap.xml` file at the docs root replaces the generated file. Keep the generated version unless you need full control.
</Note>