Technical SEO
Noindex Tag
The noindex directive is a meta robots tag or HTTP header (X-Robots-Tag) that instructs search engines not to include a specific page in their index. It is used to prevent indexing of duplicate pages, thin content, parameter URLs, thank-you pages, and internal search results that could dilute site quality signals.
Noindex implementation is validated using Google Search Console's URL Inspection tool and Screaming Frog's "Meta Robots" and "X-Robots-Tag" columns. Pages blocked by noindex appear in Google Search Console's Coverage report under "Excluded: Noindex tag." Regular audits ensure important pages are not accidentally noindexed.
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Related Terms
Technical SEO
Canonical Tag
An HTML `<link rel="canonical">` element in the page head that tells search engines which URL is the authoritative version when duplicate or near-duplicate content exists across multiple URLs.
Technical SEO
Disallow Command
A command used for web pages that are not to be crawled and indexed by bots.
Technical SEO
Indexing
Indexing refers to allowing bots crawling and indexing a webpage.
Technical SEO
Robots.txt File
A plain-text file at the root of a domain that uses the Robots Exclusion Protocol to tell compliant crawlers which paths they may or may not request.