Site Visibility and Crawl Settings
How to control who can see your pages and whether search engines index them
Overview
Every page on your CMS Max site has settings that control access and search engine visibility: Visibility and Crawl. These settings work together to determine who can see a page and whether Google and other search engines can find it.
You will find these settings on the editing screen for any page, blog post, event, product, or other content item.
- Visibility is in the Publish Settings panel on the right side of the editor.
- Crawl is in the SEO tab at the bottom of the editor (only visible when visibility is set to Public).
Visibility Settings
Visibility controls who is allowed to view a page when they visit its URL.
| Setting | Who Can See It |
|---|---|
| Public | Anyone on the internet (search engines can index the page) |
| Unlisted | Anyone with the direct link (not indexed by search engines) |
| Password Protected | Anyone who enters the correct password |
| Draft | No one — the page returns a 404 error |
| Logged In Users Only | Only visitors who are logged into an account |
Note: Public and Unlisted are two modes of the same visibility setting. When you set a page to Public/Unlisted, the label changes based on the Crawl setting (see below). Only Public pages appear in your site's search results, category listings, and sitemaps.
Crawl Settings
Crawl controls whether search engines like Google are allowed to index the page and show it in search results. This setting appears in the SEO tab when a page's visibility is set to Public/Unlisted.
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Crawl | Allows search engines to index and rank the page (visibility label shows "Public") |
| Don't Crawl | Blocks search engines from indexing the page (visibility label shows "Unlisted") |
Tip: Blocking crawling does not hide your page from visitors — it only tells search engines to ignore it. If you want to prevent visitors from accessing a page entirely, change the Visibility setting instead.
How Visibility and Crawl Work Together
| Visibility | Crawl | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Public | Crawl | Visible to everyone; indexed by Google |
| Unlisted | Don't Crawl | Visible to everyone; NOT indexed by Google |
| Password Protected | — | Requires password to view; not indexed |
| Draft | — | 404 error — nobody can access it |
| Logged In Users Only | — | Only logged-in users can view; not indexed |
Note: The Crawl setting only appears for pages set to Public/Unlisted visibility. All other visibility settings automatically prevent search engine indexing. Draft pages are completely inaccessible — they return a 404 error to all visitors and search engines.
Changing Visibility and Crawl Settings
- Navigate to the content item you want to update (e.g., Pages, then click a page).
- In the Publish Settings panel on the right side, choose a Visibility option.
- If you chose Public/Unlisted, click the SEO tab and choose a Crawl option.
- Click Save.
Your changes take effect immediately.
Common Scenarios
I am building a new page and it is not ready yet
Set visibility to Draft. The page will not be accessible to anyone until you are ready to publish it.
I want Google to find my page
Set visibility to Public and in the SEO tab, set crawl to Crawl. This is the standard setting for most pages.
I want to share a preview with a client before launching
Set visibility to Unlisted (set to Public/Unlisted, then in the SEO tab choose Don't Crawl). Share the direct link. The page will not appear in Google results or site navigation.
I have a page just for internal use
Set visibility to Logged In Users Only. Only people with an account who are logged in can access it, and Google will not index it.