Excluded by Noindex Tag: A Guide for Webmasters
What is the "Excluded by Noindex Tag" Message?
This message in Google Search Console indicates that specific pages on your website are intentionally blocked from search engine indexing. Webmasters use the "noindex" tag to prevent Google from crawling and displaying these pages in search results.
Why Use the Noindex Tag?
There are several reasons why you might want to exclude certain pages from search results:
- **Preventing Duplicate Content:** If a page has the same content as another page on your website (like agent pages mirroring website content), you can set it to noindex to avoid duplicate content penalties.
- **Protecting Sensitive Information:** Certain areas of your website, like login pages or admin dashboards, might contain sensitive information. Using noindex ensures this information doesn't appear in search results.
- **Controlling Content Visibility:** You might set draft blog posts or pages under development to noindex until they're ready for public viewing.
- **Temporary Exclusion:** You can temporarily exclude a page while rewriting copied content or making significant edits.
Understanding Noindex Options
There are three main ways to use the noindex tag, each with different implications for search engines:
- **Noindex Follow:** This tells search engines not to index the page but to follow links on the page. This is useful when temporarily excluding a page or if it contains internal links you still want crawlers to follow.
- **Noindex Nofollow:** This instructs search engines not to index the page and not to follow any links on the page. This is ideal for pages with irrelevant content or containing links to external websites you don't endorse.
Is "Excluded by Noindex Tag" an Error?
No, seeing this message in Google Search Console doesn't necessarily indicate an error. It simply means Google identified pages you intentionally excluded from indexing.
However, you might want to review the listed pages occasionally. While some might be outdated, ensure important content isn't accidentally set to noindex.