Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google and other search engines
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Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google and other search engines
ChatGPT allows users to make their public conversations discoverable by search engines. OpenAI says this was a short-lived experiment that ultimately “introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to” The service also declares that “your name, custom instructions, and any messages you add after sharing stay private.” After clicking through to create a link, users can toggle whether or not they want that link to be discoverable. However, users may not anticipate that other search engines will index their shared ChatGPT links, potentially betraying personal information (my apologies to the person whose LinkedIn I discovered). The service does not make these conversations public by default, but only if the user deliberately clicks the “share” button on their own chat and then clicks a second “create link” Button. According to ChatG PT, these chats were indexed as part of an experiment.
It’s a strange glimpse into the human mind: If you filter search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines to only include URLs from the domain “https://chatgpt.com/share,” you can find strangers’ conversations with ChatGPT.
Sometimes, these shared conversation links are pretty dull — people ask for help renovating their bathroom, understanding astrophysics, and finding recipe ideas.
In another case, one user asks ChatGPT to rewrite their resume for a particular job application (judging by this person’s LinkedIn, which was easy to find based on the details in the chat log, they did not get the job). Someone else is asking questions that sound like they came out of an incel forum. Another person asks the snarky, hostile AI assistant if they can microwave a metal fork (for the record: no), but they continue to ask the AI increasingly absurd and trollish questions, eventually leading it to create a guide called “How to Use a Microwave Without Summoning Satan: A Beginner’s Guide.”
ChatGPT does not make these conversations public by default.
A conversation would be appended with a “/share” URL only if the user deliberately clicks the “share” button on their own chat and then clicks a second “create link” button. The service also declares that “your name, custom instructions, and any messages you add after sharing stay private.” After clicking through to create a link, users can toggle whether or not they want that link to be discoverable.
However, users may not anticipate that other search engines will index their shared ChatGPT links, potentially betraying personal information (my apologies to the person whose LinkedIn I discovered).
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Though unintentional, this is a norm that was established in part by Google. When people share public links to files from Google Drive, such as documents with the “Anyone with link can view” setting, Google may index them in Search. However, Google generally does not surface links to Drive documents that have not been publicly posted on the web — for example, a document may appear in search if it is linked on a trusted website.
According to ChatGPT, these chats were indexed as part of an experiment.
“ChatGPT chats are not public unless you choose to share them,” an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We’ve been testing ways to make it easier to share helpful conversations, while keeping users in control, and we recently ended an experiment to have chats appear in search engine results if you explicitly opted in when sharing.”
While search engines like Google control the algorithms that determine what content gets surface for search terms, the search engines themselves cannot control what gets indexed.
“Neither Google nor any other search engine controls what pages are made public on the web,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Publishers of these pages have full control over whether they are indexed by search engines.”
Updated, 7/31/25, 5:30 pm ET with comment and additional context from OpenAI.
A feature to index ChatGPT conversations on search engines like Google was tested, but was removed shortly after.
ChatGPT has a feature called ‘Shared Links’ that allows users to share chat content as it is. As an option for Shared Links, OpenAI was testing a feature that would make chat content searchable on search engines like Google only if the user selected it. On August 1, 2025, newsletter writer Louisa Jalovsky posted on X that ‘sensitive conversations with ChatGPT are public’ and offered advice on how to use the feature to protect their privacy. A few hours after Jalovsky’s post, Open AI’s Chief Security Officer, Dane Stuckey, announced that the company had removed the search engine indexing feature. The changes to the Shared Links feature will be rolled out to all users by August 2, 2025. ‘We’ve been testing ways to make it easier to make all chats visible in search engine results, but we’ve ended short-term testing while maintaining user control,’ a spokesperson told TechCrunch. ‘This was a short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations’
A feature to index ChatGPT conversations on search engines like Google was tested, but was removed shortly after.
ChatGPT has a feature called ‘
We just removed a feature from @ChatGPTapp that allowed users to make their conversations discoverable by search engines, such as Google. This was a short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations. This feature required users to opt-in, first by picking a chat… pic.twitter.com/mGI3lF05Ua — DANΞ (@cryps1s) July 31, 2025
Shared Links ‘ that allows users to share chat content as it is. As an option for Shared Links, OpenAI was testing a feature that would make chat content searchable on search engines like Google only if the user selected it. However, OpenAI announced that it had removed the feature, saying that it ‘created too many opportunities for users to accidentally share unintended information.’
Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google and other search engines | TechCrunch
Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google and other search engines
Conversations in ChatGPT are not public by default. However, if you have an interesting conversation or want to check the code generated by ChatGPT, you can use Shared Links to share the ChatGPT chat screen directly, instead of copying and pasting the conversation content. To use Shared Links, click the ‘Share’ button in the upper right corner of the ChatGPT chat screen.
There’s also a ‘Share’ option at the end of the conversation.
When you click ‘Share,’ a preview of the chat content that will be made public will be displayed. Click ‘Copy Link.’ Then, like
this link , others can access the URL and view the contents of the conversation.
OpenAI experimentally added the option to ‘index in search engines’ to the Shared Links feature, in addition to ‘share via link’ and ‘share via social media.’ By making it possible to search for the content of other people’s discussions with ChatGPT, such as psychological concerns or painful experiences, users were expected to discover insights not available through regular site searches. Only chats set up by users were indexed, and public chats were anonymized, reducing the risk of personal identification.
On August 1, 2025, a few days after the feature began testing, newsletter writer Louisa Jalovsky posted on X that ‘sensitive conversations with ChatGPT are public.’ Jalovsky wrote, ‘Although usernames were anonymous, most people don’t expect these conversations to be indexed. They would be very uneasy if they found out that public links to these conversations existed on Google and that others could see them,’ and offered advice on how to use the feature to protect their privacy.
🚨 SHOCKING: people are unknowingly making their ChatGPT interactions PUBLIC, and they are being indexed by Google (see my test below). My privacy recommendations:
When people interact with ChatGPT and use the ‘Share’ feature (for example, to send the conversation to family and… pic.twitter.com/PBsCddfJyv — Luiza Jarovsky, PhD (@LuizaJarovsky) July 31, 2025
According to TechCrunch, users could find other people’s ChatGPT conversations by filtering search results on Google, Bing, and other search engines and including the domain ‘https://chatgpt.com/share.’
A few hours after Jalovsky’s post, OpenAI’s Chief Security Officer, Dane Stuckey, announced that the company had removed the search engine indexing feature. ‘We had a feature that allowed users to make their conversations discoverable in search engines like Google. This was a short-term experiment to make it easier for users to find useful conversations. Ultimately, we determined that this feature created too many opportunities for users to accidentally share something they didn’t intend to, and we’ve decided to remove this option,’ Stuckey said.
Stuckey said the company is also working to remove any chats indexed before the feature is removed. The changes to the Shared Links feature will be rolled out to all users by August 2, 2025.
An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch, ‘ChatGPT chats are not public unless users choose to share them. We’ve been testing ways to make it easier to share helpful conversations while maintaining user control, but we’ve ended a short-term experiment to make chats visible in search engine results.’