San Francisco, 14 November 2025 - OpenAI has removed the setting that allowed shared ChatGPT conversations to be indexed by Google Search. Existing links are now being stripped from search results, and the company expects the process to finish by tomorrow morning.
What changed
Until this week ChatGPT's Share feature included a checkbox labeled "Make public for search" that made any shared chat discoverable through Google and other search engines. OpenAI now calls that option a short-lived experiment and has disabled it across all accounts.
"The checkbox created too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn't intend to."
The company added that security and privacy "are paramount" and confirmed it is working with search engines to purge cached pages.
Key details
- Feature removed: "Make public for search" toggle inside ChatGPT Share.
- Removal window: 13-14 November 2025, according to the company.
- Scope: Covers new and existing shared links, though cached copies may persist temporarily.
Fast Company found more than 4,500 ChatGPT URLs indexed by Google, some exposing names, resumes and internal workplace information. Researchers surfaced the links with a simple "site:chat.openai.com/share" search.
Shared URLs remain accessible to anyone who has the direct link. Deleting a conversation from ChatGPT history does not disable an existing share link; users must visit the Shared Links dashboard to delete or restrict earlier shares.
OpenAI introduced public sharing in spring 2025 to let users reuse helpful prompts and answers. The option was available to both free and Plus tiers.
Regulatory pressure
Data regulators worldwide are scrutinizing large language models and their handling of personal information. In April 2025 Italy's data protection authority temporarily blocked ChatGPT over privacy concerns before lifting the ban after OpenAI made product changes.
Source
OpenAI statement posted to X, 13 November 2025
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)