Noindex Checker
Paste page HTML to detect all robots meta directives. Checks noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, canonical tag, and X-Robots-Tag. Instantly shows if the page is blocking Google.
How to use this tool3 quick steps
Get the full HTML
View Source (Ctrl+U) and copy the entire document. Indexability directives can live in the<head>OR in HTTP headers — this tool checks the HTML side.Paste below
We scan for meta robots, X-Robots-Tag (if present in HTML), googlebot directives, and rel=canonical pointing elsewhere.Cross-check headers separately
If a page is mysteriously deindexed and the HTML looks fine, run our HTTP Headers Analyzer — X-Robots-Tag set in the response header is invisible in HTML but binding for Google.
Use this with
Related crawlers & indexing tools
Indexability Guide
Noindex mistakes that silently delete pages from Google
A noindex tag is the nuclear option in SEO — it tells Google to completely remove a page from search results. The problem is how often it ends up on pages that should be indexed. A developer adds it to staging and forgets to remove it. A migration script adds it to all pages. A CMS setting gets flipped. This tool catches those mistakes before they cost rankings.
How noindex works
<meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tells all search engines to remove the page from their index. Google may still crawl the page but won't show it in results. The effect isn't immediate — Google needs to re-crawl to process the directive, which can take days to weeks.
noindex vs nofollow: different effects
noindex removes the page from search results. nofollow tells Google not to follow outbound links (and in meta robots, means don't pass link equity through this page). They can be combined: content="noindex, nofollow". Nofollow in meta robots is different from rel="nofollow" on individual links.
X-Robots-Tag: the HTTP header version
X-Robots-Tag is sent as an HTTP response header instead of in the HTML. It works the same as meta robots but applies to non-HTML files (PDFs, images) and can be set at the server level. Some CMSes and CDNs add this unexpectedly. Paste the HTTP response headers here to detect it.
Canonical conflicts
A page with a canonical tag pointing to a different URL is telling Google "this isn't the master version." Combined with noindex, this creates contradictory signals. A canonical without noindex is usually fine — but if you're seeing a page disappear from Google, check both.
Bot-specific directives
meta name="googlebot" and meta name="bingbot" target specific crawlers. You can noindex for Google but allow Bing to index, or vice versa. These override the general meta name="robots" for those specific bots. Site migrations sometimes accidentally add bot-specific blocks.
noarchive and nosnippet: partial restrictions
noarchive removes the "Cached" link from Google results. nosnippet prevents Google from showing a text snippet below the page title. These don't remove the page from results but reduce its SERP real estate. Neither is commonly needed — check if they're being set unintentionally.
Pro Tips
Site migrations are the #1 cause of accidental mass noindex. Paste a sample of key pages' HTML before and after any migration to catch indexability regressions before Google re-crawls.
Staging sites should always have noindex to prevent accidental indexing. When promoting to production, verify noindex is removed. This tool is the fastest way to audit a batch of pages after launch.
Some servers and CDNs set X-Robots-Tag as a response header. Paste the raw HTTP headers (from browser DevTools → Network → Headers) along with the HTML to detect header-based noindex directives.
Frequently Asked Questions
- My page disappeared from Google — can this tool tell me why?
- If noindex is the cause, yes — this tool will detect it. Paste the page's current HTML and check the result. If no noindex is found, the cause may be: manual action in Search Console, server returning 4xx/5xx, page blocked in robots.txt, or Google simply de-prioritized it. Check Search Console's URL Inspection tool for a definitive answer.
- How do I get the X-Robots-Tag value?
- Open browser DevTools (F12) → Network tab → click the main document request → Headers tab → look for 'x-robots-tag' in response headers. Paste its value into the HTML input — this tool detects X-Robots-Tag patterns in the pasted text.
- Does noindex mean the page will never be crawled?
- No. noindex only prevents indexing — Google will still crawl the page to discover the directive. If you want to prevent crawling entirely (to save crawl budget), use robots.txt. But note: a page blocked by robots.txt can't be noindexed by Google because Google can't read the tag.
- What if I want to noindex but still pass link equity?
- Use content='noindex' only (without nofollow). This removes the page from search results but still allows link equity to flow through its outbound links. Google confirmed this behavior in their documentation.