If you publish a document library on your hosted Document Library Pro site, you may want search engines like Google to index the files and information inside it. This article explains how search engines see your library, both on your hosted library page and when you embed the library on another website.
Where search engines can see your library
Your library’s own page on your hosted site (for example your-library.documentlibrary.app, or your custom domain if you have set one up) is the home of your library as far as search engines are concerned. As long as you have published this page and it is public, search engines can crawl and index it.
The library loads its list of documents dynamically, in the same way as many modern JavaScript-powered websites. Major search engines such as Google render this kind of page when they crawl it, so the document names, categories, and descriptions shown in your library can be indexed. Search engines that do not render JavaScript will see the page itself but not the individual documents inside the library.
What about libraries embedded on another website?
The embed code displays your library on another site inside an iframe. Search engines treat the content of an iframe as a separate page rather than as part of the page it is embedded on, so an embedded library does not add your document list to that page’s search listings. The embed view itself is also deliberately excluded from search results, because it is a bare frame with no navigation or branding and would make a poor landing page for searchers.
In other words, the embed is for your visitors, and your hosted library page is for search engines. If you want your library’s contents to appear in search results, publish the library page on your hosted site and keep it public. And if search visibility matters for the page you embed the library on, add your own introduction and descriptive text around the embed, since that text belongs to your page and is fully indexable.
Can the files themselves appear in search results?
Yes. Each uploaded file has its own address on your library site, and search engines can crawl and index public files such as PDFs directly once they discover a link to them. This means searchers can land straight on the file itself, without going through the library first.
Nascondere una libreria dai motori di ricerca
If you would rather a library was not indexed, simply do not publish its page on your hosted site, lock it behind the password gate on the Advanced plan, or embed it on a private page on your website or intranet with no public access. Unpublished and protected libraries send a no-index instruction, so search engines will leave them out of their results. See our separate article on whether protected libraries are hidden from search engines.