Dealing with the Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag issue in Google Search Console can be a bit tricky. Whether you’re an SEO expert or just managing your own website, understanding and resolving this issue is crucial to ensure your important pages get indexed by Google. In this article, we’ll explore what ‘noindex’ means, why it appears, and how to fix it step-by-step.

On this page

Ways to Mark a Page as Noindex

1) By Noindex Meta TAg

A ‘noindex’ meta tag is an HTML tag you can add to your webpage’s source code to tell search engines not to index the page. It’s often used for pages that don’t need to appear in search results, like login pages, thank you pages, or certain admin pages.

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>

2) By HTTP Header

A ‘noindex’ HTTP header works similarly but is added at the server level. It instructs search engines not to index the page, just like the meta tag, but it’s included in the HTTP response.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Robots-Tag: noindex

How to Fix

The required fixes for the reported URLs in this issue depend on the nature of the URLs. Here are three scenarios to match and fix the reported URLs accordingly:

1. Pages That Shouldn't Be Indexed

Some pages naturally shouldn’t be indexed, such as:

Filter URLs
Search URLs
Cart, checkout, and account URLs

Blocking these pages from robots.txt helps improve your crawl budget, ensuring Google focuses on the pages that matter.

Feed URLs and tracking URLs, like world pixel manager URLs, typically don’t need to be indexed. You can safely ignore these type of URLs.

2. Intentionally Marked 'noindex' Pages

There are also pages you might intentionally mark as ‘noindex’ and you can ignore these URLs, like:

Development or staging versions of pages.
Duplicate content.
Low-value content pages.

3. URLs that should be Indexed

Sometimes, the URLs reported URLs by Google should be indexed. Here’s how to fix the URLs reported in this issue that need to be fixed:

i) Inspect the URL:

Open Google Search Console.
Go to the issue from the page indexing report
Click the inspection icon next to the URL.

ii) Conduct a Live Test:

After inspecting the URL, click on “Test live URL” to check the current state of the page.
Under Availability > Indexing > Indexing allowed?, confirm if the ‘noindex’ directive is still present.

iii) Remove the Noindex Tag:

If the ‘noindex’ directive is present in the robots meta tag, you need to remove it by editing the source code or CMS settings accordingly. If the URL has ‘noindex’ in the HTTP header, you can edit the header response of the page to remove the ‘noindex’ meta tag.

iv) Request Indexing:

If the reported URL doesn’t have a ‘noindex’ meta tag and it was a false positive, you can request indexing for the URL.
Click “Request Indexing” to ask Google to crawl the page again and remove it from the ‘noindex’ issue list.

Conclusion

Fixing the ‘URL marked ‘noindex’’ issue in Google Search Console involves understanding what ‘noindex’ directives are, why they’re used, and how to address them. By following the steps outlined above, you can ensure your important pages are indexed and improve your site’s visibility in search results.