A directive instructing search engines to exclude a page from their index. Review the concept, business applications and implementation considerations.
A noindex page remains available to visitors but is excluded from search results once the directive is processed. Common uses include thank-you pages, internal search results and low-value tag or filter combinations. It is separate from nofollow, so links on the page can still be followed. Blocking the page in robots.txt prevents crawlers from reading noindex and may leave the URL indexed contrary to the site’s intention.
Some websites are seeing sharp increases in site: operator queries in Search Console performance reports. Explore possible causes, measurement effects and diagnostic responses.
