Google's robots.txt-blocked /searchviewer/ subfolder is booming in AI Overview citations
lilyraynyc · x · 2026-11-04
SEO expert Lily Ray flags a new Google SERP feature exploding in organic visibility: the google.com/searchviewer/ subfolder, which contains Google Business Profile embeds for businesses and is increasingly cited in AI Overviews and AI Mode.
She points out the irony that the subfolder is blocked by robots.txt yet still heavily cited in AI responses. Websites now compete not only with Google Shopping, Knowledge Panel and flight URLs but also with Google's own embed pages. The screenshot shows these pages carry no indexable information ('No information is available for this page').
Related event: Google's Hidden /searchviewer Subfolder Surges into AI Overview Citations(2 posts)→
More from Apps
- ChatGPT search queries now equal 20% of Google's, OpenAI says — lukaszkaiser · 2026-11-04
- rjs predicts a usability backlash against chat: 'chat is hard on the brain' — teropa · 2026-11-04
- LlamaIndex launches OpenDocRouter, a unified API that parses PDFs into Markdown — llama_index · 2026-11-04
- Sentry cofounder David Cramer on the hardest part of running many parallel agents — zeeg · 2026-11-04
- Creator runs full podcast pipeline on GrokBot: slicing, uploading, clipping, scheduling — adamamcbride · 2026-11-04
- NYC team behind 'an extension of your thinking' to start shipping Stream next week — pzakin · 2026-11-04