Noindex

Noindex is a directive that Google respects, unlike a canonical tag, which is only a hint. When Googlebot crawls a page and finds noindex, it drops the page from results, even if other sites link to it.

It is often confused with a robots.txt block, but they do opposite jobs. robots.txt stops a page being crawled; noindex stops it being shown. If you block a page in robots.txt, the crawler never fetches it and so never sees the noindex, and the URL can stay in results.

How it works

On an HTML page you add a robots meta tag with content "noindex" in the head; for PDFs and other files you send an X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header. You can also target a specific crawler by naming it instead of "robots". The page must be crawlable for the instruction to be read.

Once Google recrawls the page and sees noindex, it removes it from results. The Page indexing report in Search Console then lists it as "Excluded by noindex tag". Removing the tag makes the page eligible for indexing again on the next crawl. The instruction applies to the whole page; there is no tag that removes only part of a page from search.

A few details catch people out. Noindex is read only from the page itself or its HTTP header; putting noindex inside robots.txt is not supported by Google. If a page has both noindex and a canonical pointing elsewhere, the signals conflict, so pick one. Noindex can be combined with nofollow in the same tag, but noindex alone is usually what you want, so the links on the page are still followed. Pages kept on noindex for a long time tend to be crawled less often.

Example

A consultancy's thank-you page after the contact form keeps appearing in search, and people land on it without having sent anything, which also distorts conversion tracking. It adds a noindex tag to that page and leaves it crawlable. A few weeks later the page has dropped out of results and conversions are counted cleanly.

To confirm the tag is working, the owner views the page source and searches for "noindex" to see the tag, then runs URL Inspection in Search Console, which reports whether indexing is allowed. After the next crawl, the thank-you page appears in the Page indexing report under "Excluded by noindex tag". The same report, checked after any site launch, shows immediately if important pages have been noindexed by mistake.

Why it matters for your business

Noindex lets you keep useful but search-irrelevant pages online, such as thank-you pages, internal search results, login screens and thin archive pages, without them diluting your presence in results. The danger is leaving it on by accident: a site launched with a staging noindex still active can vanish from search entirely until someone notices. A two-minute check of the indexing report after every launch is the cheapest insurance against that mistake.

Common mistakes

• Launching a site with the staging noindex setting still switched on.
• Blocking a page in robots.txt and adding noindex, so the noindex is never seen.
• Using noindex on pages you actually want to rank, such as category or location pages, to fix duplication.
• Adding noindex to pages that are also listed in the XML sitemap, which sends mixed signals.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between noindex and robots.txt disallow?

Disallow in robots.txt stops compliant crawlers from fetching a page, but the URL can still appear in results if it is linked elsewhere. Noindex lets crawlers fetch the page and tells them not to show it in results. To remove a page from search, use noindex and keep it crawlable.

How long does noindex take to work?

It takes effect after the search engine recrawls the page and sees the tag, which can be days for frequently crawled pages or weeks for rarely visited ones. Requesting a recrawl through URL Inspection in Search Console can speed it up. For urgent cases, Search Console also offers a temporary removal tool.

Will noindex remove a page from Google permanently?

It keeps the page out of results for as long as the tag stays in place and Google can crawl the page to see it. If you remove the tag, the page can be indexed again. For content that must never be public, delete it or protect it with a password instead.