Discord to Make Public Server Messages Searchable on Google in December
Discord will index messages from large public servers on Google starting December. Opt-out controls are already available in user and server settings.
Discord will make messages from its largest public servers searchable on Google and other search engines, with answers posted in eligible channels appearing in web results from mid-December, according to a Discord blog post.
The change applies only to Discoverable Servers — public servers with 1,000 or more members — and the privacy settings to opt out are already live. Invite-only servers and direct messages are not affected.
Discord is rolling out the change in two stages. From November 16, every Discoverable Server gets a Server Web Page by default. These pages preview what a server contains before a visitor joins, show a summary of the conversations taking place, and can be indexed by Google. A second update in December allows answers to questions in public channels to show up in web search.
Discord says the goal is to recover information that used to sit on public message boards. “This has led to valuable information being locked in Discord conversations, inaccessible to the wider internet. We want to fix this,” the company writes.
How Discord Handles Usernames and Opt-Outs
Messages that appear in search results will not show the author’s username or avatar, according to Discord group product manager Kelsey Duncombe-Smith. The message text itself is shown in the member’s own words.
Public channels in Discoverable Servers have the setting enabled by default. Server admins can opt the whole server out or restrict web visibility to selected channels. Individual members can also block their own messages from appearing, even if the server stays opted in.
Members who do not want their posts in Discoverable Servers to show up on the web can turn the option off now:
- Open Discord and go to User Settings.
- Select Data and Privacy.
- Turn off “Show my message content from Discoverable channels on web pages.”
Admins of Discoverable Servers can review the server-level control:
- Open Server Settings for the Discoverable Server.
- Select Web Presence.
- Choose which channels, if any, should be visible on the web, or opt the server out entirely.
Discord frames the change as opt-out rather than opt-in, so a member who never opens the privacy settings will have eligible messages indexed once the December update arrives.
The opt-out is the only control available to members, so anyone who posts in large public servers should check the setting before the December update goes live. Smaller servers, private groups, and friend servers below the Discoverable threshold are outside the scope of the change. Discord has not given an exact date for the December rollout of searchable answers, and the company has not said whether the feature will expand to servers with fewer than 1,000 members.
