Block Search Indexing With Noindex

11/18/23, 5:11 PM Block Search Indexing with noindex | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers
Block Search indexing with noindex

noindex is a rule set with either a <meta> tag or HTTP response header and is used to prevent
indexing content by search engines that support the noindex rule, such as Google. When
Googlebot crawls that page and extracts the tag or header, Google will drop that page entirely
from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it.
Important: For the noindex rule to be effective, the page or resource must not be blocked by a robots.txt file,
and it has to be otherwise accessible to the crawler. If the page is blocked by a robots.txt file or the crawler
can't access the page, the crawler will never see the noindex rule, and the page can still appear in search
results, for example if other pages link to it.
Using noindex is useful if you don't have root access to your server, as it allows you to control
access to your site on a page-by-page basis.
Implementing noindex
There are two ways to implement noindex: as a <meta> tag and as an HTTP response header.
They have the same effect; choose the method that is more convenient for your site and
appropriate for the content type. Specifying the noindex rule in the robots.txt file is not
supported by Google.
You can also combine the noindex rule with other rules that control indexing. For example, you
can join a nofollow hint with a noindex rule: <meta name="robots" content="noindex,
nofollow" />.
<meta> tag
To prevent all search engines that support the noindex rule from indexing a page on your site,
place the following <meta> tag into the <head> section of your page:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
To prevent only Google web crawlers from indexing a page:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/block-indexing 1/3
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">
Be aware that some search engines might interpret the noindex rule differently. As a result, it
is possible that your page might still appear in results from other search engines.
Read more about the noindex <meta> tag

(/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots-meta-tag#robotsmeta).
If you use a CMS, such as Wix, WordPress, or Blogger, you might not be able to edit your HTML directly, or
you might prefer not to. Instead, your CMS might have a search engine settings page or some other
mechanism to tell search engines about meta tags.
If you want to add a meta tag to your website, search for instructions about modifying the <head> of your
page on your CMS (for example, search for "wix add meta tags").
HTTP response header

Instead of a <meta> tag, you can return an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header with a value of either
noindex or none in your response. A response header can be used for non-HTML resources,
such as PDFs, video files, and image files. Here's an example of an HTTP response with an X-
Robots-Tag header instructing search engines not to index a page:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
(...)
X-Robots-Tag: noindex
(...)
Read more about the noindex response header

(/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots-meta-tag#xrobotstag).
Debugging noindex issues

We have to crawl your page in order to see <meta> tags and HTTP headers. If a page is still
appearing in results, it's probably because we haven't crawled the page since you added the
noindex rule. Depending on the importance of the page on the internet, it may take months for
Googlebot to revisit a page. You can request that Google recrawl a page using the URL
Inspection tool (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289).
If you need to remove a page of your site quickly from Google's search results, see our
documentation about removals (/search/docs/crawling-indexing/remove-information).
Another reason could also be that the robots.txt file is blocking the URL from Google web
crawlers, so they can't see the tag. To unblock your page from Google, you must edit your
robots.txt file (/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/submit-updated-robots-txt). You can edit and
test your robots.txt using the robots.txt Tester
(https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062598) tool.
Finally, make sure that the noindex rule is visible to Googlebot. To test if your noindex
implementation is correct, use the URL Inspection tool
(https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289) to see the HTML that Googlebot
received while crawling the page. You can also use the Page Indexing report
(https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7440203) in Search Console to monitor the pages
on your site from which Googlebot extracted a noindex rule.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License
(https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0). For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies
(https://developers.google.com/site-policies). Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2023-11-17 UTC.

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11/18/23, 5:11 PM Block Search Indexing with noindex | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

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

To prevent only Google web crawlers from indexing a page:

<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">

Read more about the noindex <meta> tag

HTTP response header

Read more about the noindex response header

Debugging noindex issues

Last updated 2023-11-17 UTC.

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