SEO on a runs-on.dev name

Nothing about sitting under runs-on.dev helps or hurts you. The name has to earn its own links like any other host. That cuts both ways, and which way depends entirely on which record type you use.

A URL record sends visitors somewhere else with a 307. Nothing is served at your name, so there is nothing to index.

"records": { "URL": "https://github.com/you" }

The 307 is deliberately temporary, which means search engines keep treating your name as the canonical rather than passing its signals to the target. A permanent 301 would consolidate them, but it would also be cached by browsers indefinitely and strand every visitor the day you repoint the name.

Use a redirect because it is a short address you can hand to people, not because you expect it to rank. If you want the target to rank, link people to the target.

Point the name at a host you control and you serve every byte, so every ordinary SEO lever is yours: titles, descriptions, structured data, internal links, page speed. The registry is not in the request path at all once DNS resolves.

"records": { "CNAME": "cname.vercel-dns.com" }

See the guides for the record each provider wants.

This is the one that catches people. robots.txt is scoped to a single hostname. The registry's runs-on.dev/robots.txt says nothing at all about your name, and you cannot inherit it, edit it, or be blocked by it. Serve your own, and reference the sitemap by its full URL on your own host.

# https://you.runs-on.dev/robots.txt
User-Agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://you.runs-on.dev/sitemap.xml

A name with no hosting has no robots.txt of its own and returns 404 for it, which crawlers read as no restrictions.

If the same pages live at both you.runs-on.dev and your own domain, search engines have to guess which is the real address, and they will split the signals while they do it. Say it explicitly on every page.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://you.runs-on.dev/about">

If the runs-on.dev name is the only home for the content, point it at itself. If it mirrors a site you already run, point it at that site instead, and be consistent on every page rather than mixing the two.

Add https://you.runs-on.dev as its own property. It will not appear under a property for runs-on.dev, and you cannot verify the registry domain itself. A URL-prefix property verified by an HTML file or meta tag is simplest when you are hosting real content. To verify by DNS instead, a TXT record on your own name works.

"records": {
  "CNAME": "cname.vercel-dns.com",
  "TXT": ["google-site-verification=your-token-here"]
}

For a token that has to sit on an underscore label, use subdomains.

"subdomains": {
  "_acme-challenge": { "TXT": ["your-token-here"] }
}

TXT coexists with A and MX but never with CNAME at the same label. The record reference explains why.

.dev is on the HSTS preload list as a whole TLD, with force-https and include-subdomains set. Browsers upgrade every request to a runs-on.dev name before it leaves the machine, and the registry sends Strict-Transport-Security on top of that.

The practical effect is that you never have an http copy of your site competing with the https one, which is a duplicate-URL problem you would otherwise have to redirect your way out of.

A claimed name with no records is served a profile card off the wildcard. Each card carries its own title, description and canonical, so it can be indexed as its own page, but it is still one short page about a name. Point the name at real hosting if you want something that competes in search.

runs-on.dev is not on the Public Suffix List yet. Until it is, a cookie scoped to .runs-on.dev is readable by every other name in the registry.

Scope your cookies to you.runs-on.dev and nothing broader, and do not put session tokens or anything else sensitive in a cookie set above your own host.

• Hosting, not a redirect, if you want to rank.
• Your own robots.txt and sitemap.xml, on your own host.
• One canonical, declared on every page.
• Its own Search Console and Bing property.
• Cookies scoped to your name only.