HubSpot Ideas

AdamZoomin

Default File URL Visibility

When you upload files to HubSpot via a landing page, email, social post, etc., the default File URL Visibility is "Public".

 

I wouldn't want every image (or PDF) I upload to be indexed by search engines.

 

Yes, we are now able to adjust this setting for HubSpot Files, but this is not scalable when you're uploading a dozen images to HubSpot a week.

 

I would like to see an option to set the default URL visibility of our uploads to "Public - no index" (or "Private").

20 Replies
JustinEverett
Participant

This is huge. For years much of our content which is gated has been indexed by google and thus not actually gated if someone wanted to get around it. Please give us an option to change the default. Making everything public to the world should NOT be the default in the first place.

Kdurell
Member

Agree with everyone here. This has caused a number of issues for our company, and frankly, makes almost no sense. Why would I want my internal CRM/CMS to default to anything but private for files I upload to it?

iwaan
Member

Also agree. This is very bad practice and leads to potentially a lot of very sensitve files unknowingly being exposed to the public.

PValois
Member

I agree with everyone here. It seems crazy to me that the default value is Public and Indexed for new files. At a minimum, we should have the ability to set a different default value.

JaredNyquist
Member

Any update on this from anyone at the HubSpot team? 

JWaack
Contributor

Hello Hubspot team, can you maybe give an update if this is planned for 2022? Since so much of the Hubspot experience is based on lead generation and forms to access content, it's just doesn't make sense that the default is public. 

RKneller
Contributor

+1. Really would like this.

 

Jon_Sasala
Top Contributor | Diamond Partner

I like it! We too have a use case. We have one folder that we upload files to on a weekly basis that is sensitive data. Currently, we have a recurirng task to change visibility on all files in this folder to Public - No Index. Having control of the default value either for the entire file manager or (better yet) for individual folders would help us protect these files more reliably.

AHritzak
Participant

Agree with this. We're in the process of migrating to HubSpot and moving hundreds of gated resources and videos, along with several hundred more protected documents. It would be a huge help to be able to have these default to Private or No Index, rather than having to back through each folder and change each file later, in addition to having this set for any new files we upload going forward.

Vivre
Participant

PLEASE CAN WE HAVE THIS! 😁

LKeung
Member

This would help so much in terms of the process when many people internally have access to HubSpot, tiny thing like this can easily be slipped through our mind for gated content, it is a no-brainer that it shouldn't be indexed by default 

Irmelin
Participant

I second this! It's very time-consuming to go in and manually mark files as non-indexed... and the potential consequences of forgetting can be serious. No file storage system should be public on the world wide web by default.

RITAH
Member

Agreed, would be hugely beneficial!

sarahdecarlo
Participant

Please work on this, HubSpot. It's so obnoxious & tedious to have to remember to change the index setting for files that we upload to our PRIVATE Knowledge Base. This is a potentially very serious security risk, I don't think the general HubSpot user population realizes that an image uploaded to an editor for a "private" site is automatically indexed as "public".

BBaysinger
Member

March 29th, 2023 —

 

Just chatted with HS support and they STILL are not making any effort to be able to set a file URL visibility default. Get it together, hubspot - this s u c k s.

AndrewinKC
Contributor

We store all PDF collateral for our gated forms on the Hubspot CDN. We should be able to configure a default setting for public - no index. Or even a batch method of setting the visibility at the folder level.

 

AndrewinKC

DKnott6
Member

+1 to have the default be private for documents being uploaded. The risk of sensitive documents being left on public is real. Humans make mistakes and that's why fail safes exist

amsteiner
Participant

+1! I'm just facing this problem now. I am reaaaally surprised that the default file visibility is public. As a HubSpot user of two years (who yes, certainly wishes they learned this earlier), I would not expect this of files that have not been placed on website pages and the like.

 

At the least, it would be nice to change the default within an organization's settings; now I need to go back and bulk-update the visibility of a lot of files, and the filtering options within files are insufficient for making that an easy task. For example, it would be ideal to be able to filter out anything that's already been placed on a website and which should have public visibility.

 

After that groom, then I need to educate the team on best practices. That is a lot of work that could have been avoided with an option within settings. 

JKlang
Member

I'm new to HubSpot and setting everything up for my company, and I stumbled over the public files when I started to upload documents. This is crazy, I'm just glad I noticed this before all our internal documents with prices and sales pitches became public.

 

As the current system is, we can't use it because of the risk of someone uploading a file not knowing about this, and forgetting to change it to private. I have to instruct the team not to use the file feature, which is annoying.

 

Please change it to private as default and a setting for default behavior on both folders and files.

Jon_Sasala
Top Contributor | Diamond Partner

My temporary workaround here is simply a recurring weekly task to go to the folder that we host generally private files in, and change the visibility to Public - No Index. There are 33k+ files in there and it take about 30 minutes to complete, which I assume is taxing on the HubSpot system, but it is the best I can think of until this is a folder/platform setting.