AudienceBench

How to Hide a beehiiv Post or Page from Google (and What Each Setting Really Does)

Email only, Hide from feed, Archive, page indexing, Discoverable on the web, custom robots.txt: what each beehiiv option hides, and how to get a URL out of Google.

By AudienceBench Editorial · Published · Pricing & docs checked

beehiiv gives you at least six ways to keep something off your website or out of search: Email only, Hide the post from feed, Archive, Delete, a page-level Search engine indexing switch, and the site-wide Discoverable on the web toggle (plus custom robots.txt on Pro). They sound alike, but they do very different things. Some hide a post from your homepage while leaving the URL live. Others ask search engines not to index. Only a few actually take the page off the web.

This guide sorts them out, then covers the part beehiiv’s docs don’t: what Google says you need to do to keep a URL out of its results, and how to remove one that’s already there.

Our sources: beehiiv’s help articles on SEO settings, AI Crawl Control, the Audience and Web pages of the post flow, the post analytics dashboard (Archive), and its posts FAQ; beehiiv’s pricing page; and Google Search Central’s pages on robots.txt, noindex, removing information, and the Search Console Removals tool. We also read the live robots.txt files of three beehiiv-hosted sites. We checked all of them on October 29, 2026.

How we researched this: Everything below comes from beehiiv’s help center and pricing page, Google’s own documentation, and public robots.txt files we downloaded. We haven’t toggled these settings in a beehiiv account or watched a page drop out of Google, so there are no screenshots or test results here. Where beehiiv’s docs don’t say how a setting works under the hood, we say so and show you how to check it yourself.

About our links: beehiiv links on this page are affiliate links (/go/beehiiv). That’s the only program we earn from here. Our recommendations would be the same either way.

The short version

You want to…Use thisPlansURL still loads?
Send an issue that never appears on the webEmail only (Audience page of the post flow)All plansNo web version is published
Keep a post off your homepage and archive, but shareable by linkHide the post from feed (Web page → Post Visibility)All plansYes. It’s hidden from your site’s listings, not from the web
Take a published post off the web, reversiblyArchive (post dashboard or 3-dots menu)All plansNo, per beehiiv: “unavailable on the web”
Take it off for goodDelete (3-dots menu or Bulk actions)All plansNo
Keep one website page out of searchPage settings → Search engine indexing offAll plansYes
Keep the whole site out of search and AI crawlersDiscoverable on the web off (SEO & sharing)All plansYes. beehiiv says it doesn’t password-protect anything
Write your own crawler rulesCustom robots.txtPro, EnterpriseYes
Get a URL out of Google fastGoogle Search Console Removals tool, plus one of the aboveFree (Google)Depends on what you did on beehiiv

Our suggestion: if a post shouldn’t be public at all, archive or delete it. If it’s an unlisted bonus post you share by link, Hide from feed is fine, but don’t assume it keeps the post out of Google. If it’s already in Google, archive it (or delete it), then file a Removals request in Search Console.

Try beehiiv free

Hidden, unlisted, or gone: the post-level options

Email only

On the Audience page of the post flow, Publish your post to has three choices: Email and web (the default), Email only, and Web only. beehiiv says that choosing Email only makes the web options “no longer available.” There’s no web version for Google to find.

Two things to know:

  • beehiiv’s audience article also says that if you clear every subscriber group from the Email Audience on a scheduled post, the post is published to the web only, with no email send. Double-check the Review page before you publish.
  • Only web posts can go to your Community. beehiiv says email-only posts aren’t eligible.

Email only is the cleanest choice for subscriber-only notes, but it only works before you publish. For a post that’s already live on the web, use Archive.

Hide the post from feed

On the Web page of the post flow, under Post Visibility, you’ll find Hide the post from feed. beehiiv says it “will prevent the post from appearing on your publication’s website.” You can also show or hide many posts at once from Posts → Bulk actions.

What beehiiv’s help article doesn’t say is whether a hidden post still has a working URL, whether it stays in your sitemap, or whether beehiiv adds a noindex tag to it. The name (“from feed”) suggests it hides the post from your site’s post listings, not from the web. Treat it as unlisted, not private:

  • Fine for a bonus post you link from an email, a sponsor recap, or a landing-style post you don’t want on your homepage.
  • Not enough for something you don’t want found. If the URL is shared anywhere public, Google can still discover it.

You can check your own: open the post’s URL in a private browser window, then search your sitemap (yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) for the slug. If it’s in the sitemap, search engines are being told about it.

Archive

From the post’s dashboard, the dropdown next to Edit Post has Archive: “Remove the post from the web and your publication site.” beehiiv’s note: archiving “will make it unavailable on the web and your publication site, but it will remain accessible within your account.” It’s also in the 3-dots menu on the Posts page and in Bulk actions, and you can Unarchive later.

This is the reversible way to take a post down. beehiiv doesn’t document the HTTP status an archived post returns. When we requested made-up post URLs on two beehiiv sites (product.beehiiv.com and superhuman.ai) on Oct 29, both returned 404 Not Found, which is what Google wants for removed pages. Check your own archived URL the same way (open it in a private window) before relying on it.

Delete

Delete is in the same 3-dots menu and in Bulk actions. Use it when you’ll never want the post back. One wrinkle: beehiiv’s API reference says that deleting a confirmed post through the API changes its status to archived; only drafts are permanently deleted. The help center doesn’t say whether deleting from the dashboard works the same way.

If the post had links pointing to it, consider a redirect instead of a dead end. A redirect sends readers (and Google) to a related post. See our beehiiv site redirects guide.

Website pages: the per-page indexing switch

For pages built in the Website Builder (About, a landing page, a thank-you page), beehiiv’s SEO article describes a per-page control. Open Page settings either from the Settings icon → Page settings (then pick the page) or from the Pages panel → 3 dots menu → Settings, and look under Search engine indexing.

The rule is additive:

  • Site on, page off → that page isn’t indexed; the rest of the site is.
  • Site off, page on → the page is still excluded. “A page can opt into discoverability being turned off independently, but cannot opt out of a global setting.”

beehiiv’s tip if a page isn’t showing up in search: check whether its page-level setting is off, because they’re “easy to miss.”

Good candidates to turn off: thank-you / confirmation pages, sponsor-only media kits you share privately, and duplicate landing pages you made for ads.

Discoverable on the web: the whole-site switch

At the top of Website → Builder → Settings icon → Site settings → SEO & sharing is Discoverable on the web. It’s on by default and, per beehiiv, “allows search engines and AI crawlers to index your site.” beehiiv recommends leaving it on if you care about growth.

Turn it off only if the whole site should stay out of search, for example when your real website lives elsewhere and beehiiv’s site would just duplicate it, or while you build a site you aren’t ready to launch.

Two limits from beehiiv’s own docs:

  1. It isn’t privacy. “It does not password-protect or restrict direct access. Anyone with the direct URL can still view your site.”
  2. It works through robots.txt. beehiiv’s AI Crawl Control article says turning it off “updates your site’s robots.txt file to ask all search engines and AI crawlers not to index your content,” and that this “relies on convention.”

That second point matters more than it looks. Read on.

The robots.txt catch (from Google’s docs)

Google is blunt about robots.txt. Its introduction page says robots.txt “is not a mechanism for keeping a web page out of Google,” and warns that a page blocked by robots.txt “can still be indexed if linked to from other sites.” The URL, and possibly the anchor text of links pointing to it, can still show in results, just without a description.

Google’s noindex page adds the flip side: for noindex to work, “the page or resource must not be blocked by a robots.txt file.” If robots.txt stops Googlebot from fetching the page, it never sees the noindex. Google also says it doesn’t support noindex rules inside robots.txt.

So what does that mean for beehiiv?

  • beehiiv describes Discoverable on the web as a robots.txt change. beehiiv’s docs don’t say whether it also adds a noindex tag to your pages. If it’s robots.txt only, a site that’s already in Google, or that other sites link to, may keep showing up as bare URLs.
  • The per-page switch is documented as “Search engine indexing,” but beehiiv doesn’t say whether it’s a robots.txt line, a noindex tag, or both.

How to check your own site (takes two minutes):

  1. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Look for a Disallow: line that matches your whole site (Disallow: /) or the page you turned off.
  2. Open the page, view the source, and search for noindex. Google accepts it as <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> or an X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header.
  3. In Google Search Console, run URL Inspection on the page to see whether Google says indexing is allowed.

If you see a robots.txt block and the page is already indexed, Google’s guidance suggests the robots.txt block alone may not remove it. The reliable fix is to take the page down (archive/delete, which should return a 404) or use the Removals tool below.

What beehiiv’s default robots.txt looks like

We downloaded robots.txt from three beehiiv-hosted sites on Oct 29, 2026:

  • superhuman.ai and knowledge-tips.beehiiv.com serve a file headed ”# beehiiv default robots.txt … This is automatically used when you leave custom content empty.” It blocks Amazonbot and Nutch from the whole site, rate-limits AhrefsBot, and keeps crawlers out of /login, /unsubscribe/, poll results, post like pages, and analytics endpoints.
  • product.beehiiv.com serves a short file: Allow: / plus a few analytics endpoints and the sitemap.

Neither version blocks normal posts or pages. Your copy may differ depending on your settings and plan.

Custom robots.txt (Pro and Enterprise)

beehiiv’s pricing page lists Custom robots.txt as ”—” on Free and Lite and “Yes” on Pro and Enterprise. A Dec 17, 2025 beehiiv product update says it lives in your website’s SEO settings, and the default file’s header says to “customize below or upload your own robots.txt file.” beehiiv’s help center doesn’t have a step-by-step article for it yet.

Use it for crawler rules, like Google-Extended or slowing a heavy SEO crawler (see our AI Crawl Control guide). Given Google’s warnings above, don’t use it to hide a single post: a Disallow line for a post that’s already indexed can stop Google from seeing that it’s gone.

Already in Google? Use the Removals tool

If a post or page is already showing in Google, the beehiiv setting alone may take weeks. beehiiv’s SEO FAQ says changes can take “a few days to several weeks” to show up. Google’s faster route is the Removals tool in Search Console:

  1. Make sure your beehiiv site is a Search Console property you own. Google says the URL “must be in a Search Console property that you own.”
  2. Fix the page on beehiiv first: archive or delete it, or turn off indexing.
  3. In Search Console, open Removals → Temporary Removals → New Request and choose Temporarily remove URL (or Clear snippet in search if you only changed the text). You can block one URL or every URL with the same prefix.

What Google says about it:

  • It works fast: Google’s removal guide says the tool can remove a page from results “within a day.”
  • It’s temporary: a successful request “lasts only about six months.” To make it permanent, Google says to return 404 or 410, password-protect the page, or use noindex.
  • If the URL already returns a 404 when you file the request, Google treats the page as gone and lets the block expire. A new page at that URL later counts as a new page.
  • It hides the URL from results; it doesn’t stop Google from crawling it.

Google also says to protect or remove all variations of the URL, since different addresses (capitalization, query strings) can point to the same page. If a post was ever live at another address, for example before you connected a custom domain, check that one too.

Which option to pick

SituationDo this
A note only subscribers should getEmail only before sending
A bonus post you’ll link from an emailHide from feed (accept that it’s unlisted, not private)
A post you regret or that’s out of dateArchive (or delete), then a redirect if it had traffic
Something sensitive that’s already in GoogleArchive/delete, then Search Console Removals
A thank-you or media-kit pagePage-level Search engine indexing off
The whole beehiiv site duplicates your main websiteDiscoverable on the web off, then check robots.txt and noindex as above
Only AI bots, not searchPro: AI Crawl Control or custom robots.txt, not Discoverable on the web

What it costs

Every option above except custom robots.txt and AI Crawl Control is on all plans, including Free. Prices for Lite and Pro from beehiiv’s pricing page, checked October 29, 2026:

SubscribersLite (billed yearly / monthly)Pro (billed yearly / monthly)
1,000$49 / $59 per month$95 / $109 per month
2,500$69 / $79 per month$129 / $149 per month
5,000$95 / $109 per month$169 / $199 per month
10,000$119 / $139 per month$199 / $239 per month

beehiiv’s free trial is 14 days of Pro with no credit card. Full breakdown: beehiiv pricing explained.

Where beehiiv’s docs leave gaps

  • Hide from feed. No word on whether the post URL stays live, stays in the sitemap, or gets a noindex tag.
  • How indexing is turned off. Discoverable on the web is described as a robots.txt change; neither it nor the per-page switch is documented as adding noindex. Google says robots.txt alone doesn’t keep a URL out of its index.
  • Archived post status code. beehiiv says archived posts are “unavailable on the web,” but doesn’t say whether they return 404 or 410. Made-up URLs returned 404 on the two sites we checked.
  • Custom robots.txt. On the pricing page and in a product update, but no help article.
  • Paid posts. None of these articles say how paywalled posts appear to search engines.

Checklist

  • Decide: unlisted (Hide from feed), not indexed (page switch / Discoverable), or gone (Archive / Delete)
  • For new subscriber-only issues, pick Email only before you send
  • Open hidden or archived URLs in a private window to see what the public sees
  • Check yourdomain.com/robots.txt and the page source for noindex
  • Add a redirect for removed posts that had readers or links
  • Verify your site in Google Search Console and use Removals for anything already indexed
  • Don’t use robots.txt Disallow to hide a post that’s already in Google

Our take

beehiiv’s visibility options are fine once you know which is which. The trap is assuming “hidden” means “private.” Hide from feed makes a post unlisted, Discoverable on the web asks crawlers to stay away, and neither stops someone with the link. If something really shouldn’t be public, archive or delete it and, if Google already has it, file a Removals request. For everything else, the defaults are sensible, and the per-page switch handles the odd thank-you page.

Try beehiiv · beehiiv website setup · beehiiv AI Crawl Control · beehiiv site redirects · beehiiv pricing explained

Sources

All sources below were checked October 29, 2026.