Noindex
A directive that lets a page be crawled but keeps it out of the search index.
A noindex directive tells search engines to keep a page out of their index, set either in a robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag header. It is the correct tool for thin, duplicate or private pages. Note the interaction with robots.txt: a URL blocked from crawling cannot be read, so its noindex is never seen.
Definition
noindex tells a search engine it may crawl a page but must not keep it in the index. It is delivered either as a meta tag in the <head> — <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> — or as an X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header, which is the only option for non-HTML files such as PDFs.
The pairing matters. noindex, follow keeps link equity flowing through the page to the pages it links to; noindex, nofollow stops both. For an internal hub you want out of the index but still passing value, noindex, follow is almost always the right answer.
Why It Matters
It is the correct tool for pages that must exist for users but should not compete in search: filtered listings, internal search results, thin tag archives, staging environments and thank-you pages. Removing them from the index concentrates the site’s relevance signals on the pages you actually want ranked.
It is also one of the most damaging tags to get wrong. A noindex left on after a launch removes the page from Google entirely, and because the page still returns 200 nothing else looks broken.
Example
Blocking a page in robots.txt and adding noindex is self-defeating: robots.txt stops the crawl, so Google never fetches the page and never sees the noindex. The URL can then persist in the index as a bare result with no snippet. To remove a page, allow the crawl and serve the noindex.
Related Terms
Related Tools
Know the term.
Check your own site.
A free audit tells you whether this is currently costing you score points — and exactly what to change.
Run a free audit