Skip to content

Published site SEO

Topicary automatically handles the technical SEO for your published site. This guide explains what is generated, what you control, and how to get the most out of it.

What Topicary generates automatically

Open Graph images

Every published page gets a unique OG image (1200x630 PNG) generated at publish time. The image uses a deterministic mesh gradient seeded from the page title, so each page has a distinct visual identity. Social media, Slack, and other platforms use these images when displaying link previews.

OG images are regenerated each time you publish. Unpublishing a site removes its OG images.

Meta tags

Each page includes:

  • <title>: Page Title - Site Name

  • <meta name="description">: Page Title - Site Name documentation

  • og:title, og:description, og:image: for Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, and other platforms

  • twitter:card: summary_large_image with title, description, and image

  • og:type: article on content pages, website on the homepage

Here is an example of the meta tags generated for a page titled "Getting Started" on a site called "Acme Docs":

<title>Getting Started - Acme Docs</title>
<meta name="description" content="Getting Started - Acme Docs documentation">
<meta property="og:title" content="Getting Started">
<meta property="og:description" content="Getting Started - Acme Docs documentation">
<meta property="og:image" content="https://acme-docs.topicary.com/og/getting-started.png">
<meta property="og:type" content="article">
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Getting Started">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Getting Started - Acme Docs documentation">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://acme-docs.topicary.com/og/getting-started.png">

Write clear, descriptive topic titles since they directly become your <title> and og:title values. A title like "Configure SSO with Okta" performs better in search results and looks more compelling in link previews than "Authentication Settings."

robots.txt

Your published site serves a robots.txt that allows search engines to crawl all published content (Allow: /) and points them to the sitemap. When you enable the noindex toggle, the file switches to Disallow: / to keep the whole site out of search results.

XML sitemap

An XML sitemap at /sitemap.xml lists all published pages for search engine discovery.

Clean URLs

Pages use slug-based URLs derived from topic titles (for example, setting-up-sso for a topic titled "Setting Up SSO"). No query parameters, no file extensions.

JSON-LD structured data

Every page embeds a <script type="application/ld+json"> block with schema.org markup so search engines and AI tools can understand the page's structure:

  • A WebSite object on every page, naming the site and its language.

  • An article-level object chosen from the topic's type:

    • task, how-to, or tutorial topics with a numbered procedure render as HowTo with step markup.

    • faq and troubleshooting topics (and reference topics whose headings are phrased as questions) render as FAQPage with question/answer pairs.

    • concept and overview topics render as Article.

    • Any other topic renders as TechArticle.

  • A BreadcrumbList on every non-homepage page, reflecting the topic's position in the map hierarchy.

This markup is generated automatically from your topic types and content. There is nothing to configure. To control which schema.org type a page produces, set the topic's type.

What you control

Topic titles directly become page titles, OG titles, and the primary SEO signal. Write clear, descriptive titles that match what your readers search for.

Topic content is indexed by search engines. Front-load important information in the first paragraph. Search engines and AI tools weight early content more heavily.

Map hierarchy determines the URL structure and navigation. A well-organized map with logical nesting helps search engines understand content relationships.

Per-page meta descriptions are auto-generated from the title and site name. A page uses a description from its imported topic metadata when one is present; otherwise it falls back to the generated line. There is no dedicated per-page description field in the editor, so for pages you author directly, the topic title carries the most weight. Write a specific, descriptive title.

Tips for better SEO

  1. Use specific topic titles. "Configure SSO with Okta" ranks better than "Authentication Settings."

  2. One topic for each concept. Focused pages rank better than long pages covering multiple subjects.

  3. Link between related topics. Internal cross-references help search engines discover and weight your content.

  4. Keep content fresh. Updated content ranks better. Use staleness indicators to identify topics that need review.

Configurable SEO settings

Each publication target has SEO settings that you can customize in the publish manager:

  • Title template: customize the page title pattern using %s as a placeholder for the page title. For example, %s | My Docs produces titles like "Getting Started | My Docs."

  • Site description: set a meta description for the site, used on the homepage and as a fallback for pages.

  • Language: set the lang attribute on the site's HTML element (for example, en, fr, ja). This helps search engines and screen readers identify the content language.

  • noindex toggle: opt out of search engine indexing. When enabled, a <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag is added to every page, preventing search engines from indexing the site.

What is not configurable

  • Per-page meta descriptions: generated automatically from the title and site name

  • Canonical URLs: set automatically to the published page URL

  • OG image design: generated automatically using gradient patterns

  • robots.txt rules: fixed to allow all public content (or disallow everything when noindex is on)

See also

Was this page helpful?