Set site-wide Global SEO defaults

In short. Global SEO is the one panel where you tell search engines whether they can index your site, set the title separator, choose a trailing-slash preference, and merge external sitemaps. A fresh SGEN site ships with indexing off — flipping it on before launch is the single most-missed step on a new site. Everything else on this panel has a sensible default you can ignore until you have a reason to change it.

On this page: What Global SEO covers · The form fields at a glance · Step-by-step · Pre-launch checklist · Troubleshooting · Next steps

How to set Global SEO

Global SEO is a five-field form. Most sites visit it twice: once before launch to flip indexing on, and once later when something site-wide needs changing — a new title separator, an external sitemap, a swap to trailing-slash URLs.

The Indexing toggle is highlighted because it is the one setting you almost certainly need to change at least once. Every other field ships with a sensible default most sites never touch.

What is this for?

Global SEO sets the site-wide SEO baseline every page inherits. Most sites configure it once and leave it alone. For settings that apply to just one content type (blog archive, events archive, store), use the per-type Archive SEO panels — those win over Global SEO for pages in each module. For a single page, use the page editor or SEO Manager — per-page values always win.

Here is what the panel looks like pre-filled for a site that has just turned on indexing for launch:

The Indexing toggle is intentionally first so you cannot miss it on a launch-day visit. You can change any one field without touching the others — saving writes only what you changed.

Scope

Changes to Global SEO propagate immediately to the live site — no publish step needed.

Covered: indexing toggle · title separator + title pattern · default OG image · noindex for archive pages · external sitemap URLs · trailing-slash behavior · meta description fallbacks.

Not covered: per-page SEO overrides (use the page editor or SEO Manager) · per-type archive defaults (use Archive SEO panels) · robots.txt custom rules (see Edit robots.txt) · schema/structured data (per-item in the Schema Editor).

Examples

Full walk-throughs with screenshots and robots.txt output are in Good use cases below.

Reference

Good use cases

Example 1 — Pre-launch indexability flip. The most common reason to open Global SEO. Open SEO → Global SEO, tick Enable search engines from indexing this site? to on, click Save Changes. The robots.txt switches from Disallow: / to Allow: / within seconds — that single toggle is what unlocks Google indexing for every page on the site.

After saving, the green confirmation banner reads:

Open https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt in a fresh tab to confirm the change is live:

# robots.txt — auto-generated by SGENUser-agent: *Allow: /Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Example 2 — Pick the title separator. Open Global SEO, click the | pipe separator, save. Every page using the - placeholder in its title now shows the pipe:

Example 3 — Freeze indexing during a redesign. Tick Enable search engines from indexing this site? to off, save. Your robots.txt now reads Disallow: /. Open https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt to confirm:

# Indexing disabled from Global SEOUser-agent: *Disallow: /Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

When ready to launch, flip the toggle back on — the robots.txt switches to Allow: / on the next request.

Example 4 — Add an external sitemap for a store or legacy subdomain. Type the sitemap URL (for example https://shop.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) into External Sitemap URLs, save. The line appears in your served robots.txt:

User-agent: *Allow: /Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xmlSitemap: https://shop.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Multiple external sitemaps are fine — separate them with newlines or commas; each becomes a Sitemap: line in your robots.txt.

Example 5 — Site-wide fallback title and tagline. Set SEO Title and Tagline as a safety net for any page that launches without its own SEO Title. The moment a page sets its own title (in the page editor or via SEO Manager), the per-page value takes over. Use these fallbacks as a net, not a primary strategy.

After saving any Global SEO change, the page reloads with a green confirmation banner:

What NOT to use this for

• Do not use this screen to set SEO for a single page. SEO Title and Tagline here are site-wide fallbacks. Use the page editor or SEO Manager for per-page titles — those always win.
• Do not use the indexing toggle as a password. Disabling indexing only suggests to crawlers that they skip your site. Anyone with a direct link can still reach every page. For real access control, use Settings → Coming Soon or page-level password protection.
• Do not change trailing-slash behaviour on a live site. It rewrites the canonical form of every URL. Existing inbound links pointing at the old format may redirect or 404. Pick your preference on day one and stick with it.
• Do not leave indexing off after launch. A production site with indexing off never appears in Google. Make flipping it on the final item on your launch checklist.
• Do not put a page-level URL in External Sitemap URLs. That field is for full sitemap files (typically ending in /sitemap.xml), not individual page URLs. Pasting XML or page URLs produces an invalid robots.txt.
• Do not flip indexing on a staging URL used for live demos. A staging copy that ranks in Google can outrank your real production site. Keep staging permanently off; only flip on the production install.

How this connects to other features

• Setup Wizard — the wizard does not surface the indexing toggle. Open Global SEO right after install and flip it on the day you launch.
• Robots.txt — when the robots.txt textarea is empty, the default is computed from the indexing toggle here plus any External Sitemap URLs you set. Custom robots.txt content overrides everything.
• SEO Manager — per-page settings made there always win over these site-wide defaults. SEO Manager is the audit grid; Global SEO is where the fallbacks live.
• Blog archive SEO / Events SEO / Store SEO — archive-level defaults for each content type win over Global SEO for pages in each module.
• Google Search Console — verify your site there after enabling indexing so you can monitor which pages Google finds.
• Page editor / Blog editor — every page can override the site-wide SEO Title with its own. Click SEO in the page editor's right rail.

Before you start

• You are signed in to SGEN as an admin.
• You know whether your site is launched. If it is launched, the indexing toggle should be on; if you are still building, leave it off.
• If you plan to switch trailing-slash on a live site, you have a moment to check the live pages after saving in case any inbound links go through a redirect.
• If you are adding External Sitemap URLs, you have the full HTTPS URL of each sitemap ready (for example, https://shop.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml).
• If you are about to launch, you have a fresh browser tab ready to open https://<your-domain>/robots.txt so you can confirm the indexing toggle flipped.
• If you have a Google Search Console property set up, have it open in another tab so you can submit your homepage URL the moment you save.

Where to go

1. Open the left navigation.
2. Click SEO → Global SEO, or open /sg-admin/seo/global_seo directly.

You land on the SEO Configuration page (Dashboard → SEO → Global SEO). The form pre-fills with your current settings. The left rail keeps every sibling SEO panel one click away so you can jump between site-wide and per-content-type settings without losing context.

Steps

1. Turn on or off site-wide indexing

The top switch is Enable search engines from indexing this site?.

• On — your robots.txt allows crawling. Use this on a launched, public site.
• Off (default on a fresh install) — your robots.txt disallows crawling everywhere. Use this during build-out or migration.

If you are launching today, this is the one setting you must change.

Tick the box to on before you save.

2. Pick the title separator

Seven options in a row: -, –, —, :, |, ~, ». Click the one you want. This character fills in wherever your site uses the - placeholder in a page title. The pipe | and en dash – are the two most-picked. You can change it later without breaking anything.

3. Force a trailing slash on URLs (optional)

Force Trailing Slash normalizes every generated URL to end in / (for example, yourdomain.com/about becomes yourdomain.com/about/). Leave this off on a live site with existing inbound links — flipping it can cause redirects or 404s.

4. Set the site-wide SEO Title and Tagline (optional)

SEO Title and Tagline are site-wide fallbacks — they apply only when a page has not set its own SEO Title. Most sites set per-page titles directly in the page editor or via SEO Manager; those always win. Use these fields as a safety net, not a primary strategy.

5. Add external sitemap URLs (optional)

If you host additional sitemaps outside SGEN (a subdomain store, a legacy blog), type their full HTTPS URLs into External Sitemap URLs, one per line. SGEN lists them in your public robots.txt alongside the sitemap it generates for the main site.

6. Save

Click Save Changes. A green confirmation banner appears at the top after reload. Any change to Enable indexing or External Sitemap URLs shows up in your robots.txt immediately — open https://<your-domain>/robots.txt in a fresh tab to verify.

Pre-launch indexability checklist

A fresh SGEN install ships with Enable search engines from indexing this site? turned off — it protects half-built sites from being picked up during setup, but it means your site stays invisible until you flip the toggle. The Setup Wizard does not surface it. Walk this list the day you launch:

1. Open SEO → Global SEO.
2. Confirm Enable search engines from indexing this site? is ticked to on.
3. Click Save Changes and watch the green banner appear.
4. Open https://<your-domain>/robots.txt in a fresh tab. The line under User-agent: * should read Allow: /. If it reads Disallow: /, the toggle is still off — go back and save again.
5. Open Google Search Console and submit your homepage URL for re-crawl. This nudges Google to re-read your site within hours instead of days.

Skipping this checklist is the most common reason a launched site stays invisible in Google for two to four weeks.

What success looks like

• Saving shows a green banner reading SEO configuration has been successfully updated!
• Any changes to Enable indexing or External Sitemap URLs show up in your served robots.txt immediately — open it in a new tab to verify.
• Any change to Title separator shows up the next time you visit a page that uses the - placeholder in its title.
• Any change to Force Trailing Slash applies to URLs generated from that point on.

After enabling indexing, a typical your business page emits a clean, search-engine-ready <head> with index, follow set in the robots meta tag and the site-wide separator showing in the title:

Notice three things in that <head>:

• index, follow in the robots meta tag — this only appears once you have flipped the indexing toggle on. Before that, the same tag would read noindex, nofollow and Google skips the page.
• About Us | your business — the pipe separator you picked is now the live one. The site name comes from your SEO Title fallback.
• Canonical and OG tags — the canonical URL plus social-sharing metadata are ready for inbound links.

What to do if it does not work

• My site still shows Disallow: / in robots.txt after I ticked indexing on. Reload the page hard (Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+Shift+R) or add ?v=1 to the robots.txt URL to bypass the cache. The new state should be live within seconds. If it still reads Disallow: /, check that Save Changes took — look for the green confirmation banner.
• My site is still not appearing in Google two weeks after launch. Confirm the indexing toggle is on in Global SEO, then submit your homepage URL through Google Search Console. Google can take days or weeks to find a new site on its own; submitting the URL speeds that up to hours. Also confirm no individual page has its own per-page indexing toggle set to off — check SEO Manager → Index Status column.
• The site-wide SEO Title does not appear on any page. Per-page titles win. If every page on your site already has its own SEO Title (or inherits the page name), the site-wide value never applies. That is by design — set the title on the specific page instead.
• My title separator changed on some pages but not others. Browsers and CDNs cache pages. Reload each page with Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+Shift+R, or wait a few minutes for the cache to expire. The new separator applies to any page that uses the - placeholder in its title.
• I set a trailing slash and now some links 404. Revert the switch, save, and handle trailing slashes via redirects instead. The trailing-slash setting rewrites canonical URLs site-wide; existing inbound links to the old format may need a redirect rule.
• I added an External Sitemap URL but Google says the sitemap is invalid. Open the URL you typed into the field directly — it should return XML, not HTML. If it returns HTML, you typed a page URL by mistake. The field is for sitemap files only (typically ending in /sitemap.xml).
• The Save Changes button has no visible effect. Scroll to the top of the page after clicking — the green confirmation banner sits at the top of the form, not next to the button. If you do not see the banner, confirm you are still signed in (a timed-out session looks like a silent save). Reload the page and your Global SEO settings should still be there.

Tips for staying indexable after launch

• Audit once a quarter. Open SEO Manager and click the Index Status column header. Any row with off is hidden from Google — confirm those pages are intentionally blocked, not accidentally.
• Test your robots.txt after any Global SEO change. Bookmark https://<your-domain>/robots.txt and eyeball it after saving — the file is short and issues are obvious.
• Re-verify with Google Search Console after a domain change. Search Console verifications are domain-tied. Change domains without re-verifying and you lose crawl-error and indexing reports.
• Keep External Sitemap URLs trimmed. Remove sitemaps for decommissioned subdomains or stores — a 404'ing sitemap is worse than no sitemap; Google logs it as an error.
• Treat indexing-off as a switch, not a permanent state. Staging stays off forever. Production goes on at launch and stays on.
• Revisit Global SEO after every major rebuild. Rebuilds can touch site settings. Confirm the indexing toggle is still on after any large content or theme rebuild.

Next step

• Edit your robots.txt — go beyond the indexing toggle with custom user-agent rules.
• Verify your site with Google Search Console — confirm Google sees the changes you just made.
• Audit SEO across your whole site — find pages with missing SEO fields and fix them inline.
• Set blog archive SEO defaults — set fallbacks for the blog archive specifically.
• Set events archive SEO defaults — same idea for events.
• Create your SGEN site — the Setup Wizard guide. Read it before launch so you know which steps the wizard skips.