Is there a way to prevent search engine indexing for StoryMaps?

[Anonymous User]

For some of our projects, we are collaborating with third parties from outside the organization, and it would be nice to share a public link to a StoryMap which is otherwise unlisted (i.e. not indexed by search engines, the equivalent of a robots `noindex` meta statement or something similar).

[OwenGeo · Accepted solution]

Hi Rudo -- Unfortunately this is not currently a capability of the ArcGIS platform, so we do not have a way to implement this in StoryMaps.

I would suggest that you vote for one or both of these ideas to register your support for this feature:

Privacy Setting, ArcGIS Online: unsearchable but publically viewable if embeddable 

https://community.esri.com/ideas/14658 

[Lvivcenter]

Is there a chance to solve this issue eventually? I still keep receiving odd feedback from our readers who get ArcGIS links in google search results instead of our project page where this publication was embeded. It so confusing to search for a specific project page but receive ArcGIS links instead. I don't understand why for several years now there was no any reasonable explanation for not resolving this issue. Make an additional license fee for that, if necessary. But it just something that is crucial. As far as I can see there are many voices up for this feature across the community. 

[Lvivcenter]

While offering so many other useful features, the issue with Storymaps indexing is causing continuous damage to our project's identity. So, I just keep sending this question to the void again - do you at least consider resolving this issue with search engine indexing? Will you ever respond to this request with some solutions? 

[OwenGeo · Accepted solution]

@Lvivcenter -- Good news! Last week, ArcGIS StoryMaps gained the ability to opt-out of search engine registration. For more information, see What’s new in ArcGIS StoryMaps (August 2023) (esri.com).

[Lvivcenter]

That is fantastic news! It finally resolves so many issues for us. Thank you.