A noindex tag tells search engines not to show a page in their results. It is useful for pages that should exist but not appear in Google.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
Pages that usually should be noindexed
- Thank-you and confirmation pages.
- Internal search results.
- Login, account and cart pages.
- Thin tag or archive pages on blogs.
- Staging or test pages.
- Landing pages made only for ads, if they duplicate other content.
Noindex vs robots.txt
For noindex to work, Google must be able to crawl the page and see the tag. If you block the page in robots.txt, Google cannot see the noindex. Read robots.txt explained.
The costly mistake
In WordPress, the setting “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” adds noindex to every page. It is often left on after development, and the site disappears from Google. Check Settings, then Reading.
How to check
- Search Console’s Pages report shows pages “Excluded by noindex tag”.
- View the page source and search for “noindex”.
Create tags
Generate meta robots tags with our meta tag generator.
Want the full picture? This article is part of SEO: the complete guide, our in-depth guide with everything in one place.
