If you are a member of a large public Discord, your posts may soon be visible in Google Search—even to those without a Discord account. Starting in November, Discord’s Discoverable Servers will have server web pages that show up in web search results, including summaries and messages from public channels. While messages won’t be tied to your username or avatar, you may still want to opt out.
Some Discord servers are getting discoverable web pages
This change applies to Discoverable Servers on Discord, which are public spaces that have at least 1,000 members. There’s no invite link, so anyone can find and join them as long as they have a Discord account. (Other servers on Discord are either invite-only Community Servers for larger groups or Friend Servers, which are small, private spaces.)
On Nov. 16, Discord is launching server web pages for Discoverable Servers, which will display discussion summaries from public channels as well as some individual messages. By mid-December, these pages may appear in search results. While these servers have always been fairly easy to access since they are public, this removes the requirement to sign up for Discord and join servers in order to view them.
In its announcement detailing the change, Discord notes that private servers and DMs will remain private. Plus, server admins can choose which channels are included in web search or opt them out entirely.
How to opt out of web search on Discord
As noted, server admins can disable public channels from inclusion in server web pages via Server Settings > Web Presence. Server members can also keep their messages from being discoverable under User Settings > Data and Privacy. There’s a single toggle for all discoverable channels, so you can’t select different settings for different servers. You cannot opt out of having your messages incorporated in channel summaries.
Messages you send before mid-December won’t be included in search regardless of your setting preferences. However, if you leave this enabled and decide to turn it off later, anything you send between mid-December and disabling the setting will stay up unless you delete the message from Discord entirely.
