How to avoid indexing a production deployment that does not have a connected custom domain?

[cbdeveloper]

I'm migrating a project and I don't want the production deployment to be indexed by robots until I transfer and connect my custom domain it. What would be the best way to achieve that?

[amyegan]

Hi @cbdeveloper! You can use a x-robots-tag: noindex header to prevent the site from being indexed. That's what Vercel already does automatically for Preview deployments to prevent negative SEO impact from duplicate content. There's a guide called "Are Vercel Preview Deployments indexed by search engines?" which covers the topic in more detail. That should give you the information that you need to implement the solution for production deployment!

[khanakia]

Vercel is not adding the x-robots-tag: noindex you can verify curl -I https://hustler-icu-site.vercel.app/ then why docs say it's automatically added?

[amyegan]

It looks like hustler-icu-site.vercel.app is associated with a Production deployment, so it wouldn't have x-robots-tag: noindex by default. If want to avoid indexing a production deployment, you need to add the header using the method recommended by your site's framework or with the header object in a vercel.json file.

[xdajay]

What a mess is this.
Vercel should by default block google accessing any of preview urls even for production url still under .vercel.app