GlossaryTechnical SEO
Noindex
Also called: Meta robots noindex
Noindex is a directive telling search engines not to include a page in their results. A noindex page can still be crawled.
Noindex is an instruction placed in a meta robots tag or an HTTP header. It asks search engines not to show the page in search results. It's useful for thank you pages, internal search results, staging pages and anything you don't want found.
The common mistake is leaving noindex on after launch. It's easy to do when a site moves from staging to live, and it can quietly remove important pages from search. Another mistake is blocking a page in robots.txt and expecting noindex to work. Google can't see the tag if it can't crawl the page.
Practical point: check pages that matter for noindex, especially after a redesign. This matters for links too, since a link from a noindex page is unlikely to help you in search. Always confirm that the page where your link sits is indexable.
LinkHatch's free link check at /link-check tests whether the page is indexable.
Links you can check.
Every link we place comes with a receipt. The free link plan shows the pages worth pushing and what the links would cost.