Noindex

A noindex directive tells search engines not to include a page in their index. It is set via a `robots` meta tag (`<meta name="robots" content="noindex">`) or an `X-Robots-Tag: noindex` HTTP response header. Noindex must be followed by a `follow` or `nofollow` directive to control link crawling.

Why it matters: Use noindex for pages that should not appear in search results: internal tools, test pages, duplicate or thin content, thank-you pages, and paginated archives. Verify with URL Inspection that noindex is being respected — a robots.txt disallow can prevent crawlers from seeing the noindex tag, causing the page to be indexed as a URL-only result.