🚫 Why preview URLs can hurt SEO
Website Studio creates a preview on a Search Atlas builder domain so you can review a site before it goes live on your own domain. If that preview stays published, Google can crawl and index it as a second copy of your site. Duplicate pages split relevance, can show the wrong URL in search, and may compete with your real domain.
Unpublishing the preview takes the builder-domain copy out of public view. Google then has a clear signal to drop those URLs. Your live site on your own domain should be the only version you want indexed.
🛠️ Unpublish the preview
Use these steps for each Website Studio project that still has a public preview:
- Sign in to Search Atlas and open Website Studio.
- Select the project whose builder-domain URL is showing up in Google.
- Open the project’s Publish or site settings.
- Choose Unpublish. This removes public access to the preview on the builder domain. It does not delete your project or your content.
- Confirm the action, then open the old preview URL in a private browser window. It should no longer load as a public site.
- Repeat for every project that was published only as a preview and is not meant to rank.
If the site should stay live, publish it only on your connected custom domain. Do not leave a second public copy on the builder domain.
📍 Where to Find It
UI path: Left sidebar → Website Studio
🔍 Check what Google is indexing
Search Google for your brand or a unique sentence from a page, or use a site: search for the builder-domain host you were given. Note every preview URL that still appears. You will use that list after the pages are unpublished.
- Your real domain should be the URL you want in search results.
- Builder-domain URLs should not be linked from your live site, sitemap, ads, or social profiles.
- Remove any internal links or redirects that point to the preview.
📊 Ask Google to drop outdated URLs
Unpublishing does not erase Google’s index overnight. After the preview no longer loads for the public, request removal of the outdated URLs:
- In Google Search Console for a property you own, use Removals only for URLs on that property.
- For builder-domain URLs you do not control in Search Console, use Google’s public Remove Outdated Content tool once those URLs return an error or are no longer available.
- On your live site, keep a self-referencing canonical on each page that points to the production URL on your domain.
- Submit or refresh the sitemap for your real domain only.
Temporary removal requests hide URLs faster. Lasting cleanup depends on the preview staying unpublished so Google recrawls and drops it.
💡 Keep future previews out of search
- Share preview links only with people who need to review the site, and unpublish when the review is done.
- Do not add builder-domain URLs to sitemaps, navigation, or public content.
- Connect and launch on your custom domain when the site is ready to rank.
- After launch, search again for the old preview URLs and confirm they are gone or marked unavailable.
💬 Still seeing the builder domain
If the preview URL still loads after you unpublish, or you cannot find the publish control for that project, the project may still be set to public. If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be instantly connected with a member of our team.