Meta Robots
A meta tag for controlling indexing of a specific page.
In brief
Meta Robots is an HTML tag placed in the <head> section of a page. It gives search bots instructions on indexing that page and following its links. Common directives: noindex (do not index), nofollow (do not pass link equity), and noarchive (do not show a cached copy).
What is meta robots
Meta Robots is a flexible way to control search bot behaviour at the individual page level. Unlike robots.txt, which blocks crawling, meta robots can allow crawling but block indexing (noindex) or link following (nofollow).
Main directives
- noindex — do not add the page to the search index
- nofollow — do not follow links on this page (no link equity passed)
- noarchive — do not show a 'Cached' link in snippets
- nosnippet — do not show a snippet (description) in SERPs
- max-snippet:[number] — maximum snippet length
Usage example
HTML
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow" />
<!-- do not index, but follow links -->The noindex directive only works if the page is already crawlable (not blocked by robots.txt). If robots.txt blocks crawling, Google won’t see the meta robots tag and the page may stay indexed.
FAQ
Common questions
Yes, e.g., noindex, nofollow — prevent indexing and prevent passing link equity. Order doesn’t matter.
Meta robots is an HTML tag that works only on HTML pages. X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP header suitable for any file type (PDF, images).
Usually within a few days to a few weeks. The page is removed only after the next crawl where Google sees the directive.
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