noindex
Sitecheck Team
A directive that prevents a page from appearing in search engine results.
noindex is a directive that tells search engines not to include a page in their index. It can be applied via a <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag in the page <head>, or as an X-Robots-Tag HTTP response header.
Why it matters: Applying noindex to low-value or duplicate pages keeps crawl budget focused on important content and prevents thin pages from diluting site quality.
Quick tips:
- Do not combine
noindexwithDisallowin robots.txt — if a page is disallowed, the crawler cannot read thenoindexdirective. - Use
noindex, nofollowfor private or internal pages you never want indexed. - Audit regularly for accidental
noindexon pages you want ranked.
See also: robots.txt, Canonical Tag, crawl budget.