Search engines and SEO settings

Your project's search-engine settings are under Services → SEO: the name and description search engines show, robots.txt and the sitemap, pre-rendering, and the primary domain. Everything else, such as a title for each page, is something you ask your assistant for.

Site name and description

Site Name is shown in search results and browser tabs, and Site Description in search results. Site Name is your project's name, so changing it here renames the project. Click Save, then publish again: both are written into the page when you publish.

robots.txt and sitemap.xml

Under Discoverability, robots.txt controls which pages Google and AI tools may read, and sitemap.xml helps Google find all your pages. Click Add next to either one to hand the request to your assistant, which writes the file. The row then reads Added. Both are part of your project, so publish for them to go live.

• A sitemap written as a file is fixed. When you add pages, ask your assistant to update it.
• For pages that come from your database, such as products or posts, your assistant can build the sitemap from the data instead. That kind of sitemap is served only while Enable Pre-rendering is on, and the SEO tab tells you when that is what is missing.
• A published app always serves robots.txt as a file, never from backend code.

Pre-rendering

Enable Pre-rendering makes Floot render your pages on the server, so a crawler receives each page's full HTML: its own title, description and content. Publish again after switching it on or off.

With it off, your home page is rendered once when you publish, and every other address returns the same starting HTML, carrying the site name and description. The rest is filled in by JavaScript in the visitor's browser. Crawlers that run JavaScript still see your pages; link previews and tools that do not see only the starting HTML.

• Turn it on for pages you want found or shared: landing pages, a blog, a product catalog.
• An app that lives behind a sign-in does not need it.
• With it on, pages are rendered by your app's backend, which counts toward hosting like its other work.
• A duplicate of the project starts with it off.

A title and description for each page

Ask your assistant, for example: "give every page its own title and meta description, and a share image for the product pages". These tags live in your app's code, page by page. For them to reach crawlers that do not run JavaScript on pages other than the home page, turn on pre-rendering.

Keeping pages out of search

• One page: ask your assistant for a noindex meta tag on that page, and turn on pre-rendering so crawlers see the tag in the page's HTML.
• The whole site: ask for a robots.txt that disallows everything.
• An app only certain people should open: publish it privately. Search engines are told not to index a private app, and nobody reaches it without a sign-in.

The response headers you can set for an app are listed in Security headers.

Primary domain and redirects

When your app answers on more than one address, such as its floot.app address, yourapp.com and www.yourapp.com, search engines can treat them as copies of each other. Under Primary Domain, pick the one that should count. Every other address, the floot.app one included, then redirects to it with a permanent (301) redirect that keeps the path and the query string.

• The list holds your connected custom domains, so the app has to be published with at least one custom domain.
• It applies to the live app without a publish. Allow a few minutes.
• Choose None to stop redirecting. Removing the primary domain from the project also clears the setting.

For redirects of single addresses, such as an old page to its new one, ask your assistant to add them in your app. One exception: addresses ending in .php, .asp, .aspx, .jsp, .cgi or .cfm, left over from a site built elsewhere, never reach your app. Floot sends them to your home page with a permanent redirect.

Tracking and verification tags

To add a Search Console verification tag, an analytics snippet or an ad script, paste the code to your assistant and ask it to add it to the page head, then publish. If a script is blocked after you add it, see Security headers.

Showcase backlink

Once the app is published, Submit to Showcase opens a form for Floot's showcase page, which links back to your app. It asks for a screenshot and a LinkedIn or X profile, and a submission is reviewed before it appears.

Getting indexed

Floot does not submit your site to search engines. Add the site in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap's address there, and give it time: a new site is not indexed in a day. Connect a custom domain and set it as the primary domain first, so one address is indexed and not several.