What is “Excluded by ‘noindex’ Tag” in search console, impact & how to fix it

When Google Search Console reports that a page has been “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag”, it means that the page has a “noindex” directive in its HTML code, which instructs search engines not to index the page in their search results.

The “noindex” directive is a meta tag that can be added to a webpage’s HTML code to tell search engines not to include that page in their search results. This can be useful for pages that you don’t want to appear in search results, such as duplicate content or pages that are under development.

However, if a page that you want to be indexed has a “noindex” tag, it won’t show up in search results, which can be detrimental to your website’s visibility and traffic. To remove the “noindex” tag from a page, you’ll need to edit the HTML code for that page and remove the meta tag that includes the “noindex” directive.

In Google Search Console, you can find the pages that have been excluded by “noindex” tags by going to the “Coverage” report and clicking on the “Excluded” tab. From there, you can see which pages have been excluded and take the necessary steps to remove the “noindex” tag and get those pages indexed by search engines.

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Impact:

The effect of a page being “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” in Google Search Console is that search engines will not index that page in their search results. This means that the page will not appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) when users perform searches using relevant keywords or phrases.

As a result, if important pages on your website are excluded by a “noindex” tag, it can have a negative impact on your website’s visibility, traffic, and search engine rankings. It’s important to ensure that pages you want to be indexed are not excluded by a “noindex” tag.

However, there are certain cases where excluding a page from search results using a “noindex” tag is necessary or desired, such as for pages with duplicate or thin content, pages that are under construction or contain sensitive information, or pages that you don’t want to appear in search results for other reasons.

If you want to remove the “noindex” tag from a page, you’ll need to edit the HTML code for that page and remove the meta tag that includes the “noindex” directive. Once the “noindex” tag is removed, search engines will be able to index the page and it will be more likely to appear in search results.

How to Fix:

To fix a page that is “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” in Google Search Console, you need to remove the “noindex” directive from the page’s HTML code. Here are the steps to do this:

  1. Identify the pages that have been excluded: In Google Search Console, go to the “Coverage” report and click on the “Excluded” tab. Look for the pages that are excluded due to a “noindex” tag.
  2. Check the page’s HTML code: Open the HTML source code for the page and search for the “noindex” directive. Look for the <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag in the HTML code. If you find it, this is what’s causing the page to be excluded.
  3. Remove the “noindex” directive: Delete the <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag from the page’s HTML code. This will remove the “noindex” directive and allow search engines to index the page.
  4. Verify the fix: Use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console to test the page and confirm that the “noindex” tag has been removed. Once the page has been indexed, it should no longer appear in the “Excluded” tab in the “Coverage” report.

It’s important to note that it may take some time for search engines to crawl and index the page after the “noindex” directive has been removed. So, it may take a few days or even weeks for the page to start appearing in search results again.

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