Noindex Tag: How to Keep Pages Out of Google

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Noindex Tag: How to Keep Pages Out of Google – SEOTT guide

A noindex tag is an instruction that tells search engines not to include a page in their results. It is the correct way to keep low-value or private pages out of Google, and a precise tool in technical SEO.

How to add noindex

The usual method is a meta tag in the page head:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">

For PDFs and other non-HTML files, use the HTTP header instead:

X-Robots-Tag: noindex

In WordPress, Rank Math and Yoast let you set noindex per page, per post type or for archives in a few clicks.

Noindex vs robots.txt

This is the most common confusion. Robots.txt stops crawling; noindex stops indexing. Google must be able to crawl a page to see its noindex tag. If you block the page in robots.txt, Google never reads the tag and may index the URL anyway from external links. Use one or the other depending on the goal, not both on the same URL.

Which pages should be noindexed?

  • Internal search results.
  • Thank-you and order confirmation pages.
  • Login, account and cart pages.
  • Thin tag archives and author archives on single-author blogs.
  • Staging sites (better still, password-protect them).
  • PPC landing pages that duplicate organic pages.
  • Filter combinations with no search demand.

Which pages should never be noindexed?

Any page you want to rank, obviously, but also category pages that bring traffic and pages that are the canonical target of others. Do not combine noindex with a canonical tag pointing elsewhere; the signals contradict each other.

Noindex, follow vs noindex, nofollow

“Follow” lets crawlers follow the links on the page. Over time Google treats long-term noindexed pages as nofollow anyway, so do not rely on noindexed pages to pass internal link value.

Classic noindex disasters

  1. WordPress’s “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box left ticked after launch.
  2. Staging noindex settings copied to the live site during deployment.
  3. A plugin update applying noindex to a whole post type.
  4. Noindex pages still listed in the XML sitemap.

Check the “Excluded by noindex tag” list in Google Search Console after every major change.

How long does noindex take?

Google drops the page after its next crawl, which can take days or weeks. For urgent removals, use the Removals tool in Search Console alongside the tag.

Frequently asked questions

Does noindex hurt the rest of my site?

No. Removing thin pages from the index often helps overall quality.

Can I noindex part of a page?

No. Noindex applies to the whole URL.

Related terms

See duplicate content, crawling and indexing and the SEO encyclopedia.

Mr. SEO is the webmaster at SEO TT - SEO tips and tricks, a publication about all things SEO related.