SEO by platform · Updated
Google Sites SEO: what you can and can't control
Google Sites is simple and free, but it gives you far fewer SEO controls than other builders. You can shape page titles, structure and content and use a custom domain; you can't edit robots.txt or add your own structured data.
Founder, SEO·AEO·GEO
Builds SEO·AEO·GEO and writes the crawler, schema, and citation research published here.
How Google Sites serves pages to crawlers
Google Sites publishes server-hosted pages; text blocks are crawlable. Embedded content (documents, calendars, iframes) may not be read as part of your page.
What you can control
- Page names, which become page titles and URLs; make them descriptive.
- Headings and text blocks; use title, heading and subheading styles for structure.
- Alt text for images.
- A custom domain instead of a sites.google.com address.
- Publish settings: make sure "Request public search engines to not display my site" is unticked (it's off by default for public sites).
What you can't control
- robots.txt and sitemaps.
- Custom structured data or arbitrary meta tags.
- Detailed per-page meta descriptions in the way other builders allow.
If organic search is important to your business, a builder with full SEO settings (see Wix, Squarespace or WordPress) gives you more room.
Tips
- Put important information as text on the page, not only in embedded documents.
- Link pages to each other from the text.
- Verify the site in Search Console (with the custom domain) and watch indexing.
Check it on your own site
What the free audit tests for this
- Title tag
- Image alt text
- Indexability
One URL, about 20 seconds, no login. You get the result of every check and the exact fix for the top three issues.
Audit your website freeFAQ
Can Google Sites rank on Google?+
Yes, public Google Sites pages can be indexed and rank, but you have limited SEO controls.
Sources
- Publish & share your site — Google Sites Help
- SEO Starter Guide — Google Search Central (2025-12-10)