Noindex
What is noindex?
Noindex is a robots directive that tells search engines not to include a page in their index, so it does not appear in search results. You set it with a robots meta tag, <meta name="robots" content="noindex">, in the page’s head, or with an X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header. Google treats it as a rule, not a hint.
The crawler has to see the directive to obey it. If the page is blocked in robots.txt, Google never fetches it, never sees the noindex, and may keep the URL indexed from links. So a page you want out of results must stay crawlable.
Noindex affects only the page it is on. Links on a noindexed page can still be followed for a while, although Google has said that long-term noindexed pages are eventually crawled less and their links treated like those on a page that is not there. noindex in robots.txt itself has not worked since Google dropped it in September 2019.
Why noindex matters for SEO
Noindex is how you keep low-value pages out of search: thank-you pages, internal search results, thin tag archives, staging copies and account pages. Removing them reduces index bloat and keeps searchers landing on pages that are worth landing on.
It is also one of the easiest ways to lose traffic by accident. A noindex left on after a redesign, or a CMS setting that adds it to a whole section, removes those pages from Google within days or weeks of the next crawl. Checking for unexpected noindex is a standard part of every technical SEO audit.
How to noindex a page
- Add
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">to the<head>of the page. To target only Google, usename="googlebot". - For PDFs, images and other non-HTML files, send an
X-Robots-Tag: noindexheader from your server instead. See X-Robots-Tag. - Make sure the URL is not disallowed in robots.txt, or Google cannot see the directive.
- Remove the page from your XML sitemap and avoid pointing a canonical tag from it to another URL.
- Check it worked with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. For an urgent removal, use the Removals tool, which hides a URL for about six months while the noindex takes effect.
Noindex example
<!-- In the page head -->
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
# Or as an HTTP response header
X-Robots-Tag: noindexNoindex FAQ
What is the difference between noindex and disallow?
Disallow in robots.txt stops a page being crawled but not indexed. Noindex lets the page be crawled but keeps it out of the index. To remove a page from results, use noindex and do not disallow it.
How long does noindex take to work?
It takes effect the next time Google crawls the page, which can be days or weeks depending on how often the page is crawled. Requesting indexing in URL Inspection can speed up the recrawl.
Does noindex pass link equity?
Links on a noindexed page can still be followed at first, but Google has said that pages left on noindex for a long time are treated more like noindex, nofollow. Don’t rely on noindexed pages to pass value.
Related SEO terms
A meta robots tag is an HTML tag that tells search engines whether to index a page, follow its links and how to show it in results.
X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header that gives search engines robots directives such as noindex, including for PDFs and images.
Robots.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a site that tells crawlers which URLs they may and may not request.
Indexing is when a search engine analyses a crawled page and stores it in its index, so it becomes eligible to appear in search results.
Index bloat is when a search engine indexes many more of a site’s pages than it should, most of them low-value, duplicate or unintended URLs.
Nofollow is a link attribute or meta directive asking search engines not to follow or credit links. Google treats it as a hint.
Deindexing is when pages or a whole site are removed from a search engine’s index, so they no longer appear in results at all.