noindex

noindex is a directive for search bots forbidding indexation of a page. Implemented via HTML meta tag or HTTP X-Robots-Tag header.

Syntax

Meta tag in `<head>`:

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

HTTP header (for PDFs, images, other non-HTML files):

X-Robots-Tag: noindex

When to apply

• •Thank-you pages (/thank-you after form submission)
• •Internal site search results
• •Cart, user account, checkout
• •Technical pages (error logs, test URLs)
• •Duplicate content you don't want in search
• •Gated/subscription-only content

noindex vs robots.txt vs canonical

| Tool | Purpose | Removes from index | |---|---|---| | robots.txt Disallow | Blocks crawling | ❌ may remain | | noindex | Blocks indexation | ✅ yes | | canonical | Points to main version | ⚠️ partially |

Critical mistake

If you block a page via robots.txt — Google can't read the noindex tag and won't remove it from the index. To remove a page from search: first unblock in robots.txt, add noindex, let Google recrawl. Only then can you re-block in robots.txt.

When to remove

Sometimes noindex lands on a page accidentally (after dev mode). Regularly check via GSC "Pages" → "Excluded by noindex" report.