SEO Optimization

Optimize your docs for search engines and social previews by setting titles, descriptions, and metadata in frontmatter.

What Jamdesk Does Automatically

Optimizing Your Content

Write Effective Frontmatter

---
title: User Authentication    # Under 60 characters
description: Set up OAuth, JWT, and session-based authentication  # 120-160 characters
---

Page Titles

• Keep under 60 characters to avoid truncation in search results
• Include your primary keyword near the beginning
• Make each title unique across your docs

Descriptions

• Aim for 120-160 characters
• Summarize what the reader will learn
• Include relevant keywords naturally

Controlling Indexing

Site-Wide Settings

In your docs.json, configure default robot behavior:

{
  "seo": {
    "metatags": {
      "robots": "index, follow"
    }
  }
}

Per-Page Control

Override indexing for specific pages in frontmatter:

---
title: Internal Notes
noindex: true
---

Use noindex for:

• Draft or work-in-progress pages
• Internal documentation
• Deprecated content you're keeping for reference

Canonical URLs

If your docs are accessible at multiple URLs, set a canonical:

---
title: Getting Started
canonical: https://docs.example.com/getting-started
---

You can also set a site-wide canonical base in docs.json. Jamdesk appends each page's path to it, so every page gets a correct per-page canonical:

{
  "seo": {
    "metatags": {
      "canonical": "https://docs.acme.com"
    }
  }
}

Social Previews & Open Graph

Jamdesk auto-generates a branded 1200×630 social card for every page. Override any social tag in frontmatter. You can use flat top-level keys or a nested seo: block. Both work, and when the same key is set both ways, the flat top-level value wins.

---
title: API Reference
description: REST API endpoints and authentication
"og:title": API Reference — Acme
"og:description": Everything you need to call the Acme API
"og:image": /images/api-social-card.png
"twitter:card": summary_large_image
"twitter:creator": "@acme"
keywords: ["api", "rest", "authentication"]
canonical: https://docs.acme.com/api-reference
---

---
title: API Reference
description: REST API endpoints and authentication
seo:
  "og:title": API Reference — Acme
  "og:image": /images/api-social-card.png
  "twitter:card": summary_large_image
  x-custom-tag: any custom meta value
---

Supported tags

Twitter / X card type

The twitter:card tag controls which layout X (and other platforms) use when your link is shared:

For a branded 1200×630 card, use summary_large_image so the image renders at full width.

Site-wide default image

Set a fallback social image for every page in docs.json. Any page that sets its own og:image overrides it:

{
  "seo": {
    "metatags": {
      "og:image": "https://docs.acme.com/images/default-card.png"
    }
  }
}

Sitemap & Robots.txt

Every Jamdesk site generates sitemap.xml and robots.txt automatically on each build.

Where to find them

The URLs depend on whether your docs live at a root domain or under a /docs subpath:

https://docs.acme.com/sitemap.xml
https://docs.acme.com/robots.txt

What's included in the sitemap

• All published pages (excluding those with noindex or hidden frontmatter)
• Last-modified dates from frontmatter when available
• Weekly change frequency

Excluding pages from the sitemap

Add noindex to frontmatter to exclude a page from both the sitemap and search engines:

---
title: Internal Notes
noindex: true
---

Pages with hidden: true are also excluded automatically.

JSON-LD Structured Data

Every page automatically includes schema.org structured data as a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag with two schemas:

• WebSite: your site name, URL, and description (from docs.json).
• BreadcrumbList: navigation path from Home to the current page, derived from your navigation config.

No configuration needed. Search engines use this for rich results like breadcrumb trails in search listings.

IndexNow

After each build, Jamdesk automatically submits changed page URLs to IndexNow for faster search engine indexing. This notifies Bing, Yandex, and other participating search engines about your content changes without waiting for their next crawl cycle.

• Fires after every successful build
• Only submits pages that actually changed
• Non-blocking, so it never delays your build
• No configuration required

Best Practices

Run through this checklist before you publish:

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