When you get the “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” error in Google Search Console it means Googlebot cannot look at some pages on your website. This is because these pages have a noindex tag that blocks Googlebot. The Google Search Console error is a problem because it stops your pages from showing up in search results. This can be bad for your website because it means people will not be able to find it. The Google Search Console error can hurt your websites visibility and the number of people who visit it.. Do not worry, fixing the “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” error, in Google Search Console is not that hard if you do what we say.
What is the “Excluded by ‘noindex’ Tag” Error?
Google has a tag called noindex that stops certain pages from showing up in search results. This noindex tag is like a sign that says to search engines do not add this page to your list even if people can still visit the page. When you see this error message in Google Search Console it means that Googlebot found a noindex tag, on a page and that is why the page is not being included in the search results. Google uses the noindex tag to control what pages are indexed.
Steps to Fix the “Excluded by ‘noindex’ Tag” Error
Identify the Affected Pages
- Log in to Google Search Console.
- Navigate to the “Coverage” report under the “Index” section.
- Look for pages listed under the “Excluded” tab with the error “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag.”
- Take a look at the URLs to find out which pages have the noindex tag, on them. We need to review the URLs to see which pages are affected by the noindex tag. This will help us understand which pages are not being indexed.
Check the Source Code of the Page
- Open the affected page in a web browser.
- Right-click on the page and select “View Page Source” or press Ctrl + U (Windows) or Cmd + Option + U (Mac).
- Search for the noindex directive by pressing Ctrl + F or Cmd + F and typing noindex.
- The noindex tag is something you might see in the head section of a website it looks like this in the section:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>
- If you see this tag it means the page is supposed to be hidden from search results, on purpose. The page has been deliberately set to noindex.
Remove or Modify the ‘noindex’ Tag (If Necessary)
To get the page to show up in search results you need to take out the noindex tag. This way the page will be. People can find it when they search for something. If you want the page to be included in search results removing the noindex tag is the thing to do.
Open the page in your website’s CMS or code editor.
Remove or update the tag.
If you still want to be in charge of which search engines follow links but do not record the content you can use noindex follow. This way you have control over the search engines that follow the links on your website but they will not keep a record of what’s, on the webpage, which is the content of the webpage. You can use noindex follow to control what the search engines do with the links and the content of your webpage.
Save the changes and upload the page back to your server.
Verify the Change
- So you need to make the changes and then go to the page, in a browser. Now view the source code of the page again to see if the noindex tag is really gone. Check the noindex tag to confirm that the noindex tag has been removed from the page.
- You want to make sure Google can look at and list the page. To do that you should use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console. This tool is really helpful for checking if Google can crawl and index the page. You can use the URL Inspection tool to see if Google is having any problems, with the page. If you use the URL Inspection tool you will know for sure if Google can crawl and index the page.
Please enter the web address of the page that you changed.
Click on “Request Indexing” to ask Google to recrawl the page and update its status in the index.
Monitor the Status in Google Search Console
- When you ask Google to index something Google is going to take a while to go back and look at the page again.
- You should check the Coverage report in Google Search Console on a basis to see if the error that says Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag has been fixed. The Coverage report in Google Search Console is a place to look for this information, about the Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag error.
- If the page is still not indexed you need to check for problems. Look for things like a robots.txt file that is stopping Googlebot from working. There might be instructions that are causing trouble too. Make sure there are no issues, like these that are preventing the page from being indexed.
Additional Tips for Avoiding “noindex” Issues
Audit Your Pages Regularly: Use tools like Google Search Console or third-party SEO tools to regularly check your site’s indexability.
To get pages to show up in search results you need to make sure they are connected to other pages on your website. This is called linking. If a page is not linked to any page it is like an orphan. Search engines might not even look at these pages even if you do not tell them to ignore the page. You should link to these pages from pages on your site so that search engines can find them. Internal linking is important, for pages that you want people to see.
You should check your Robots.txt file. This file can stop Googlebot from looking at pages by mistake. Make sure your Robots.txt file is not blocking pages with a rule that says do not allow. Check your Robots.txt file to see if Googlebot can look at all the pages it needs to. You do not want your Robots.txt file to block pages.
If you want a page to be indexed you need to use a meta tag.
This meta tag for a page you want indexed is really important.
The Example Meta Tag for a page you want indexed tells search engines to index the page.
Here are the details for the Example Meta Tag, for a page you want indexed.
If you want Google to include a page in its search results the meta tag for that page should look like this: Google needs to be able to find the page so the meta tag for Google is important. The meta tag, for Google should be set up in a way to help Google index the page.
<meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow”>
This is a code for a website that tells search engines what to do. It says
- index: this means the search engine should add this website to its list
- follow: this means the search engine should also look at the pages that this website links to
So the code is, like a sign that says to search engines: please look at this website. Remember it and also look at the other pages it is connected to.
This tells search engines to look at the page and follow the links on it. If you want to stop search engines from looking at things on the page like pictures or specific parts you should use the noindex tag just on those things. This way you have control, over what gets indexed and what does not. You do not have to block the page just the things you do not want search engines to see.
Conclusion
The “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” error in Google Search Console is relatively easy to fix, but it requires attention to detail. By identifying which pages have the noindex tag, removing or modifying the tag, and ensuring that Google can re-crawl your site, you can restore your pages to the index and improve your site’s visibility in search results.
