NightshiftDirect

Glossary

noindex

noindex is a rule, set in a robots meta tag in the page or in an HTTP response header sent with it, that tells search engines not to show that page in their results. Google drops the page from its results once it reads the rule.

Also called noindex tag, noindex meta tag.

By NightshiftDirect Research. Published . Updated .

How the rule works

The rule can live in two places: a robots meta tag in the head of the page, or an X-Robots-Tag header that your server sends along with it. Either way, once Google fetches the page and finds the rule, it drops that page from Google Search results (Google Search Central).

Google has to read the page to see the rule, and that has a consequence. If robots.txt blocks the page, the rule is never read, and the page can go on appearing in results when other sites link to it (Google on robots.txt). So noindex only works on a page that robots.txt leaves open. Google also ignores a noindex line placed in robots.txt itself.

How it ends up on the wrong pages

Few owners add noindex to a homepage on purpose. It usually gets there through a setting. Site builders and content systems often have an option that asks search engines to stay away while a site is under construction, and a site can launch with it still ticked. The other route is a staging copy made live: the test version was marked noindex so it would stay out of Google, and then it became the real site.

Because the page still looks normal in a browser, the problem is easy to miss. Often the first sign is a page that has dropped out of search while everything else seems fine.

When to use it on purpose

Some pages should exist without being found in search. The thank-you page a visitor sees after sending your form is one. So are booking confirmations and pages meant only for existing customers. noindex suits these.

For anything truly private, add a password. noindex keeps a page out of results, and anyone with the address can still open it.

How the scan looks for it

The scan reads your homepage and the pages in your main menu, and checks both the meta tag and the response header on each. A noindex rule on any of them is T2, a high-severity finding, with the pages it found as evidence. The scan reads each page as your server sends it, so a rule a script adds after the page loads would not show up (what the scan does not measure).

What the free scan checks

Questions

How fast does a page come back after I remove noindex?

No one can promise a date. Google has to crawl the page again before it sees the rule is gone, and its own starter guide says some changes show within a few hours while others take several months (Google Search Central). Remove the rule, check that robots.txt lets Google in, and keep the page linked from your menu.

Is noindex the same as blocking a page in robots.txt?

No. A robots.txt block asks crawlers not to fetch the page, and Google can still list its address if other pages link to it. noindex lets Google read the page and tells it not to show it. Pick one per page, never both. For a page you want out of results, that means noindex.

Where this fits in our work

We handle this as part of Technical SEO: The crawl, index, speed and structured data problems that keep good pages from being found, fixed and shown with evidence.

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