Technical SEO · Intermediate

Noindex

Noindex is a rule, set in a robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag header, that tells search engines not to include a page in their index. The page must be crawlable for the rule to be seen.

By Thryv StudioUpdated

Level
Intermediate
Meta tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
HTTP header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex
Needs
The page not to be blocked in robots.txt
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What is noindex?

Noindex keeps a page out of search results. You can set it in the page's HTML or, for files like PDFs, in an HTTP header:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
X-Robots-Tag: noindex

Search engines have to crawl the page to see the rule, so don't also block it in robots.txt.

When to use it

  • Thank-you pages, internal search results and account pages.
  • Thin tag or filter pages you don't want in search.
  • Staging or duplicate versions you can't redirect.

Common mistakes

  • Leaving noindex on after launching a site built on staging.
  • Blocking a noindexed page in robots.txt, so the rule is never seen.
  • Using noindex when a canonical or redirect would consolidate signals better.

Frequently asked questions

Does noindex affect AI answers?

Yes, for AI features that rely on search indexes. AI Overviews, for example, only use pages eligible to appear in Search.

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