What Is an Unlisted Account? Link-Only Records

An unlisted account is a published ShowMyTrades account that has been removed from every listing on the platform: the page renders in full for anyone holding the URL, but nothing on the site points to it. It sits between private, where nobody but the owner can load the page at all, and published, where the page is both readable and discoverable.

How it works

Unlisted is not a separate kind of page, and not a separate value in the visibility field. Internally the account stays published and carries a boolean link-only flag, which is why the page, the statistics, the widgets, the followers and the slug all behave exactly as they did before the switch — no public endpoint had to change to support it. Only listings change.

Three public listings filter unlisted entities out, each by the same unlisted = false condition on its query:

• Your public trader profile, which is the same endpoint that fills the "other accounts by this trader" suggestions at the foot of every account page.
• The Explore feed, and the community counters that sit on it.
• The public account search used by the Widget Builder, so nobody can find the account by name or ID and embed it.

Two more places exclude them by choice rather than by listing logic: the referral page will not offer an unlisted account as the link you share publicly, and the AI analysis job filters them out, so no new analysis is generated. Analyses produced before the switch stay on the page.

Everything else is untouched. The account page loads for anyone with the address, the widget endpoints serve it, the widgets you already embedded keep rendering, and a custom slug change still leaves a 301 redirect behind. The same option and the same semantics apply to portfolios.

Why it matters

Because "show one person" and "publish to the world" are different requests, and most platforms only offer the second. An unlisted page is the version you send to a prop firm reviewing your application, to an investor doing due diligence, or to one client of the twenty you track — without that account joining your public profile, appearing in the community feed, or turning up in a widget somebody else builds.

Be precise about what it does not do. It is not private: anyone holding the link sees the whole page, trades included. It carries no noindex tag and stays in the sitemap, which is a deliberate decision rather than an oversight — an unlisted page that Google indexes is an accepted outcome. Followers who followed the account before the switch keep seeing it under Following, because they already have the link. Platform counters keep counting it as published. And the owner does not see their own unlisted accounts on their own public profile; they are managed from the private dashboard.

If a page must not be readable by a stranger who guesses or is forwarded the URL, the correct setting is private, not unlisted.

What the data shows

Of the 10,000+ accounts published on ShowMyTrades, 37 are unlisted (August 2026). It is a deliberately narrow tool used by a small number of owners, and the shape of that usage matches the design: people who track many accounts and want to hand out one of them.

Where you see it on ShowMyTrades

In Account Settings → General → Visibility the dropdown holds exactly three entries, each prefixed with a small icon: Private - Only you can view, Published - Visible to others and Unlisted - Only via direct link. On the dashboard page for that account an amber Unlisted badge sits next to the copy-link and open-page buttons. In the dashboard Accounts and Portfolios tables it is a third state in the Status column, in amber, with a matching entry in the Status filter. The admin panel's Visibility column distinguishes it too, though its filter does not yet offer it as a choice.

One behaviour worth knowing: the bulk Publish and Hide actions in those tables always clear the flag. Publishing something is meant to make it genuinely public, and hiding it is not meant to leave a link-only flag armed for the next time it is published.

Common misunderstandings

• "Unlisted means private with a link." It means published, minus discovery. The page is fully public to anyone who has the address.
• "Search engines will not find it." They can. There is no noindex, and the page stays in the sitemap.
• "Making an account unlisted breaks my embeds." It does not. Widgets serve published accounts, and unlisted accounts are published. Setting the account to private is what breaks them.
• "Nobody can see it any more." Existing followers still can, and so can anyone the link was forwarded to.

For how visibility, slugs and the public profile fit together, see the public profile and custom slugs guide.

Related terms