That link you shared from ChatGPT? Yeah, it might be searchable on Google. And if you included anything personal… it might be out there too.
When OpenAI introduced its “Share” feature on ChatGPT, it was meant to let users easily pass around fun, helpful, or interesting conversations. You hit “share,” generate a neat little “https://chatgpt.com/share/…” link, and send it off to a friend or post it online. Pretty straightforward.
But here’s the catch: These shared links are being indexed by Google and other search engines, meaning they’re now searchable and findable by anyone on the internet. Yes, including strangers. Yes, potentially with personal details included.
And yes… people are noticing.
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Search savvy users have discovered that by filtering results to only show pages from chatgpt.com/share, they can browse a surprisingly raw and sometimes revealing cross-section of humanity. Some of it is mundane (how to fix a leaky faucet), some is hilarious (a satirical guide to using a microwave without summoning Satan), and some is awkwardly personal, like a resume rewrite for a specific job where the candidate is, unfortunately, very easy to identify via LinkedIn.
To be clear: these conversations are only public if users deliberately choose to share them. ChatGPT does not make any chats public by default. When you click “Share,” you have to manually generate a shareable link. OpenAI even explicitly says your name, custom instructions, and any messages added after sharing stay private.
But here’s where things get blurry. Most users don’t expect that a private-looking link, one they only shared with a few people, could end up in Google’s search results. But like any other publicly accessible URL, it can be crawled and indexed.
It’s not entirely unprecedented. Google Drive users have experienced similar surprises when sharing documents with the “anyone with the link” setting, which technically counts as public. If those documents are linked from a public site, Google can find and index them. But in ChatGPT’s case, some of these links appear to be indexed even without widespread public promotion.
OpenAI hasn’t publicly commented on the matter. But Google offered a predictable response:
“Neither Google nor any other search engine controls what pages are made public on the web. Publishers of these pages have full control over whether they are indexed by search engines.”
In other words, it’s on OpenAI to prevent these links from being indexed, if that’s what it wants.