Enter a page URL to see whether it can appear in Google. We read every robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag header, show what Google, Bing and other crawlers are told, flag conflicts, and check whether robots.txt stops Google from ever seeing a noindex. Free, no account needed.
The verdict answers one question: can Google index this page? The rest of the report shows why, so you can find the exact tag, header or rule to change.
Google, Bing and all other crawlers can be given different rules. For each one you see whether it may index the page, whether it may follow the page's links, and every directive that applies. When rules overlap, the most restrictive wins, so one noindex anywhere is enough to keep a page out.
Every robots meta tag (robots, googlebot, bingbot) and X-Robots-Tag header, exactly as written, with who it applies to and where it sits. A robots meta tag outside the <head>, or after an element that closes the head early, may not be read.
Whether robots.txt lets Googlebot and Bingbot crawl this URL, and the exact rule that decides it. A blocked page can't be crawled, so a noindex on it is never seen and the URL can stay in results without a description.
Each issue with its fix: noindex or nofollow you may not have meant, a header and meta tag that disagree, directives written without commas, unknown directives, snippet limits, and pages blocked by robots.txt.
Use the exact URL you want indexed. If it redirects, we check the page it lands on, because that is the page search engines index.
Every X-Robots-Tag header, including ones aimed at one crawler such as googlebot: noindex, and every robots, googlebot and bingbot meta tag in the page.
Directives that apply to all crawlers are combined with crawler-specific ones, and the most restrictive result wins, the same way search engines apply them.
We read the site's robots.txt and test this exact URL for Googlebot and Bingbot, so you can see whether a block hides the page's noindex.
The TaskGlaze site audit finds noindexed pages, noindex headers and internal links pointing at noindexed pages across your whole site. See the site audit.
noindex and robots.txt do different jobs and are often confused. Using the wrong one is the most common reason a page either won't leave Google or won't get in.
Add <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> to the page's <head>, or send X-Robots-Tag: noindex. The page can still be crawled and its links followed, but it won't be shown in search results.
Disallow stops crawlers reading a URL. It doesn't remove it from results: a blocked URL that other sites link to can still be indexed, just without a description.
If robots.txt blocks a page, crawlers can't read its noindex, so the noindex does nothing. To remove a page, allow crawling until it drops out of results, then block it if you need to.
PDFs, images and other files have no <head>, so send the directive as an HTTP header instead. It works for HTML pages too and is easier to set across a whole folder.
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex"> applies only to Google; name="robots" applies to all crawlers. In headers, prefix the directive: X-Robots-Tag: bingbot: noindex.
Write noindex, nofollow, not noindex nofollow. Directive names are not case-sensitive, but a missing comma can make the whole value unreadable.
nosnippet, max-snippet, max-image-preview and max-video-preview change how a page appears in results without removing it. Use them instead of noindex when the page should still rank.
Many site builders and CMSs add a site-wide noindex while a site is in development. Forgetting to switch it off at launch is one of the most common causes of a site vanishing from search.
These directives work in both the robots meta tag and the X-Robots-Tag header. Google and Bing support the ones below; other crawlers may support fewer.
| Directive | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| noindex | Keeps the page out of search results | The page must be crawlable for this to be seen |
| nofollow | Links on the page aren't followed | Applies to every link on the page |
| none | Same as noindex, nofollow | |
| index, follow, all | The default behaviour | Writing them changes nothing |
| nosnippet | No text snippet or video preview in results | The page can still rank |
| max-snippet:[n] | Limits the snippet to n characters | 0 means no snippet, -1 means no limit |
| max-image-preview:[none|standard|large] | Limits image preview size | large is needed for some visual features |
| max-video-preview:[n] | Limits video previews to n seconds | -1 means no limit |
| noimageindex | Images on the page aren't indexed | Images linked from elsewhere may still be indexed |
| notranslate | No translation offered in results | |
| unavailable_after:[date] | Stop showing the page after the date | Use a widely used format such as ISO 8601 |
| indexifembedded | Allows indexing of embedded content despite noindex | Only together with noindex |
A site-wide "discourage search engines" setting left on after launch. Every page carries noindex and the site slowly drops out of results.
The page is blocked in robots.txt and has a noindex. Crawlers never see the noindex, so the URL can stay indexed. Remove the block until the page is gone.
An X-Robots-Tag: noindex set in the server or CDN configuration doesn't show in the page source, so it is easy to miss. This check reads headers too.
Blanket rules on page 2+ or filtered category pages can remove useful pages and cut crawl paths to products deep in the archive.
One tag says index, another says noindex, often from a theme and a plugin both writing robots tags. The most restrictive rule wins, so the page is kept out.
A page-level nofollow stops search engines following every link on it, including your internal navigation. Use rel="nofollow" on individual links instead.
The page says both "don't index me" and "index that URL instead". Pick one: a canonical for duplicates, noindex for pages that should never appear.
"noindex nofollow" with a space instead of a comma. Write directives as a comma-separated list.
noindex, nofollow, X-Robots-Tag and robots.txt, explained.
A noindex checker reads the instructions a page gives search engines, in its robots meta tags and its X-Robots-Tag header, and tells you whether the page may be indexed. This one also checks robots.txt, because a blocked page can't be crawled to see its noindex.
noindex tells search engines not to show the page in results. They still need to crawl the page to see the instruction, and they drop it from the index the next time they do.
noindex keeps the page itself out of search results. nofollow tells search engines not to follow the links on the page. They are independent: a page can be noindex, follow, which keeps it out of results but still lets crawlers discover the pages it links to.
It is an HTTP response header that carries the same directives as the robots meta tag. It works for any file type, including PDFs and images, and is usually set in the server or CDN configuration, which makes it easy to forget.
No. robots.txt only controls crawling. A blocked URL can still be indexed from links, without its content. To remove a page, let it be crawled and serve noindex, or remove the page so it returns 404 or 410.
Because robots.txt blocks Googlebot from this URL. Google never fetches the page, so it never reads the noindex, and the URL can stay in results. Allow crawling until the page has dropped out, then block it again if you need to.
Search engines combine every directive that applies and use the most restrictive one. If either the header or any meta tag says noindex, the page is noindex.
A robots meta tag whose name is a crawler, such as <meta name="googlebot" content="noindex">, applies only to that crawler. name="robots" applies to all crawlers. The report shows the combined result for Google, Bing and other crawlers separately.
No. It shows the rules the page sets today. Whether a page is currently in the index also depends on when it was last crawled, its quality and duplicates. Google Search Console's URL inspection shows the indexed status for your own sites.
Check for an X-Robots-Tag header from your server, CDN or a plugin, a second robots meta tag from your theme, and any page cache that still serves the old version. The report lists every source separately.
Three per tool per day without an account, or fifteen per tool per day when you are signed in to your TaskGlaze account. Each free tool has its own count.
We check every link against public lists of phishing and scam sites before loading it, and refuse ones that look unsafe. A refused link doesn't use one of your daily checks.
More free checks from TaskGlaze, with the same daily allowance for each tool.
TaskGlaze audits indexability across every page of your site and records what changed since the last crawl.