Excluded by Noindex Tag: What It Means for Your Website
"Excluded by noindex tag" means Google found an instruction on that page saying "don't put me in search results", and it did as it was told. That's not a penalty. Whether it's a problem comes down to one question: did you want that page on Google?
For a thank-you page or a test page, the answer is no, and the message just means the setting is working. Your home page is a different story. If that's on the list, it's why nobody can find you on Google, and the fix is usually one setting.
What does "excluded by noindex tag" mean?
It means the page carries a noindex rule, and a noindex rule tells search engines to leave the page out of their results. Google's own guide, Block Search indexing with noindex, says that when Googlebot finds the rule it will drop the page from Google Search results, whether or not other sites link to it.
The rule usually lives in a line of code in the page's head, the hidden top part of the page that visitors don't see. It can also be sent by the server alongside the page, in what Google calls an X-Robots-Tag header. You don't need to know which. What matters is who, or what, put it there.
You'll have seen the message in Search Console, Google's free tool for site owners, in the Page indexing report. Google's help page for that report describes the reason simply: when Google tried to index the page, it met a noindex directive and so didn't index it. The same page says plainly that "not indexed" is not necessarily bad.
Is it a problem, or is it meant to be there?
It's only a problem if the page listed is one you want people to find. Open the message in Search Console and it shows example addresses. Go down that list with this table beside you.
| The page listed | Do you want it on Google? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Your home page, service pages, prices or contact page | Yes. These are the pages people search for. | Find the noindex and remove it, then validate the fix. |
| The thank-you page after someone sends a form | Usually not. Nobody searches for it. | Leave it alone. |
| A draft, a test page or an old copy of a page | No. | Leave it, or delete the page if you no longer need it. |
| A login, basket or account page | Usually not. | Leave it alone. |
| Every page on the site | Almost certainly yes. | Look for a site-wide setting first, not page by page. |
Every address on the list a page nobody would search for? Close the report and get on with your day. If your home page is there, read on.
Why would my own pages have a noindex tag?
Usually because a setting was switched on and never switched off. Some builders, WordPress among them, offer a way to keep a site out of search while it's being made. That's sensible, and it's easy to forget once the site goes live.
WordPress is the clearest example. Its Reading Settings documentation explains that ticking Discourage search engines from indexing this site (under Settings, then Reading) adds a noindex line to the head of your pages. Untick it and save, and the line goes. If someone built the site for you, it's fair to ask whether that box was ticked during the build and left that way.
On another builder, or with an SEO plugin, search that product's own help pages for "noindex". The setting can be site-wide or sit on a single page, so check both before you assume the builder is broken.
How do I fix it once I've found the setting?
Remove the noindex, then tell Google to look again. Google needs to revisit the page before it notices the change, and its noindex guide warns that, left alone, it may take months for Googlebot to come back to a page.
- Check the page as Google sees it. Paste the address into the URL Inspection tool at the top of Search Console. Google says this shows the HTML Googlebot received, so you can see whether the noindex is still there.
- Ask for a recrawl. From the same inspection, request indexing. Google's guide names this as the way to get the page looked at sooner.
- Validate the fix. Back in the Page indexing report, open the noindex reason and press Validate fix. Google's help says validation typically takes up to about two weeks, and sometimes much longer.
Being indexed again doesn't promise a ranking. It only means Google is allowed to show the page. If the site still gets no visits once it's indexed, our guide to why a new website gets no visitors covers what usually comes next.
When should I leave the noindex alone?
Leave it on any page that's no use to a stranger arriving from a search. Thank-you pages, unfinished pages, login screens and old versions you've kept for reference are all better left out. Taking the noindex off them gains you nothing.
If you'd rather not dig through settings at all, we build small business sites from £495 and you see a preview before you pay anything. The wider job of being found is in the fix your website and get found hub, and if you'd like a hand, tell us about your business.
Frequently asked questions
Will one noindex page hurt the rest of my website?
Google's noindex documentation only talks about the page that carries the rule: that page is dropped from its results. Nothing in it describes the rule counting against your other pages, so a noindexed thank-you page is simply a page Google leaves out.
Should I keep pressing Validate fix to hurry it along?
No. Google's help for the Page indexing report says not to click Validate fix again until the first validation has succeeded or failed, and that validation typically takes up to about two weeks.
Is noindex the same as blocking a page in robots.txt?
No, and mixing them causes trouble. Google says a page with a noindex rule must not also be blocked by robots.txt, because then its crawler never sees the noindex, and the page can still turn up in results if other pages link to it.
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