--- title: "Noindex" description: "Noindex is a meta robots directive that instructs search engines not to include a specific page in their search index, preventing it from appearing in search results." category: "SEO Crawling & Indexation" date: "2026-03-05" url: "https://getbeast.io/glossary/noindex/" type: "glossary" --- # Noindex **Category:** SEO Crawling & Indexation | **Updated:** 2026-03-05 Noindex is a meta robots directive that instructs search engines not to include a specific page in their search index, preventing it from appearing in search results. --- ## What Is Noindex? Noindex is a directive that tells search engines to exclude a page from their index. It can be implemented via a `<meta name="robots" content="noindex">` tag in the HTML head or an `X-Robots-Tag: noindex` HTTP header. Unlike robots.txt (which blocks crawling), noindex allows crawling but prevents indexing. ## Why Noindex Matters Use noindex for pages that should be accessible to users but not appear in search results: internal search pages, thank-you pages, admin pages, or thin content. Noindex is **the only reliable way to prevent indexing** — robots.txt Disallow does not prevent indexing if other sites link to the blocked URLs. ## How to Implement Noindex Add `<meta name="robots" content="noindex">` to the page's `<head>`. For non-HTML resources, use the `X-Robots-Tag: noindex` HTTP header. Do not block noindexed pages in robots.txt. Audit with [CrawlBeast](/crawler/) to ensure important pages are not accidentally noindexed. --- ## Related Terms - [Nofollow](/glossary/nofollow/) - [Meta Robots](/glossary/meta-robots/) - [Robots.txt](/glossary/robots-txt/) - [Indexation](/glossary/indexation/) - [Deindexation](/glossary/deindexation/) ## Further Reading - [Diagnosing Indexation Issues](/blog/indexation-issues/) --- *Part of the [GetBeast SEO Glossary](/glossary/). Visit [GetBeast.io](https://getbeast.io) for professional SEO and log analysis tools.*