SEO
GitBook handles most SEO automatically. Published sites are responsive, pre-rendered, and served via a global CDN, with little configuration needed from you.
What GitBook does automatically
Responsive design
Published content adapts to any screen size — phones, tablets, and desktops.
URLs and metadata
Page URLs are based on the page title by default, but can be customized.
Canonical URLs prevent duplicate content issues.
HTML and Open Graph titles pull from the page and site title.
Meta and Open Graph descriptions pull from the page description.
Images support alt text, which helps both search engines and accessibility.
HTML is pre-rendered server-side, so crawlers don't need JavaScript to index your content.
Sitemaps
GitBook automatically generates a sitemap for any published site that isn't set to unlisted. To find it, append /sitemap-pages.xml to your site's home URL — for example, gitbook.com/docs/sitemap-pages.xml.
CDN and caching
All published content is cached and served via a global CDN. Faster load times improve both user experience and search rankings.
What you can do
Set a custom domain
A custom domain like docs.example.com can improve search visibility compared to a yourorganization.gitbook.io subdomain. Set up a custom domain →
Improve indexing speed
GitBook has no control over how quickly search engines index your content, but two things can help:
Link to your site from pages that are already indexed. When Google re-crawls those pages, it's more likely to discover your site.
Submit your site to Google directly. This requires a custom domain and ownership verification via a TXT DNS record. Submit your site to Google →
Set up redirects
Moving content to GitBook or restructuring your site can break existing links and affect SEO. Set up redirects → to forward old URLs to new ones.
When you move or rename a page, GitBook automatically creates an HTTP 307 redirect from the old URL to the new one. Learn more about automatic redirects →
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