Skip to main content
HostTracker
HOST-TRACKER
website monitoring service
Status pages Instant check Price
Login Register

Noindex checker

Check whether a page tells search engines not to index it - through the robots meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag header - and see its canonical tag and robots.txt rule in the same result.

Examples: 300+ locations worldwide · results in about 10 seconds

You've used today's free checks

Create a free account to keep checking. It takes less than a minute, and new free checks are available again tomorrow.

Start 30-day free trial Already have an account? Log in
{{error.message}}

Unlock the full report

30-day free trial · cancel anytime

Loading plans…
See all plans & pricing
Recommended
{{ plan.name }}
{{ money(priceMo(plan)) }}/mo
  • {{ plan.maxTaskCount == null ? 'Unlimited' : plan.maxTaskCount }} monitored sites
  • All check locations in the report
  • TLS, headers & timing details
  • Scheduled reports
  • REST API access
Start free trial
Billed only after your trial · Compare all plans

What the noindex checker reads

The robots meta tag in the page head and the X-Robots-Tag response header - the two places a noindex or nofollow directive comes from - as the page is served.

Find out more

How a noindex ends up on a live page

A staging setting shipped to production, an SEO plugin switch, or a CDN rule that adds X-Robots-Tag to every response. None of them change what visitors see.

Find out more

A check tells you today. Monitoring tells you the day it changes

This is a one-time result. The Indexability option on a website monitor reads these signals on every check and sends a notice when one of them changes.

Find out more

Guides

Related checkers

A one-time check only tells you about today See SEO monitoring

Key takeaways

  • This tool loads the page you enter once, follows redirects and reads the robots meta tag and the X-Robots-Tag response header as the server sends them, not after JavaScript runs.
  • It reports whether either one carries noindex or nofollow, and which of the two set it.
  • The same result shows the page's canonical tag and whether the site's robots.txt allows the URL for all crawlers.
  • It is free, needs no login and no credit card.
  • For continuous checks, the Indexability option on a website monitor reads these signals on every check and sends a notice when one changes.

Frequently asked questions.

Enter the page address above and run the check. The checker loads the page once, follows redirects and reads the two places a noindex can come from: the robots meta tag in the HTML and the X-Robots-Tag response header. The verdict says "Indexable", "Indexable, nofollow" or "Noindex", and names the source - meta tag, header or both. To look by hand, search the page source for name="robots" and run curl -I https://example.com/page to see the response headers.
noindex is a rule that asks search engines not to show a page in their results. You set it with a meta tag in the page head, <meta name="robots" content="noindex">, or with an HTTP response header, X-Robots-Tag: noindex; either works. Search engines read it when they crawl the page, so the page drops out of results after the next crawl, even if other sites link to it. The value none means noindex and nofollow together. More in what noindex is and when to use it.
X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header that carries the same rules as the robots meta tag, such as noindex or nofollow. It is set by the web server, a CDN, a framework or a plugin rather than written in the HTML, which is why the page source never shows it. It is also how you apply noindex to files without an HTML head, such as PDFs and images. This checker reads the header on HTML pages; for a PDF or another non-HTML file it reports "Not an HTML page", so check such a file with curl -I.
The directive then comes from the X-Robots-Tag response header, and the verdict says "Noindex (X-Robots-Tag)". Typical sources are a header rule in the web server configuration, a CDN or reverse proxy rule, a hosting or SEO plugin setting that hides the site from search engines, or a framework that marks staging builds. Also check which page was read: the checker follows redirects, and when the URL redirects, the result shows the address it landed on under "Redirects to".
noindex keeps the page itself out of search results. nofollow asks search engines not to follow the links on the page, and the page can still be indexed. The two are independent, can be combined as noindex, nofollow, and none is shorthand for both. The checker reports them separately, as Indexing (index or noindex) and Links (follow or nofollow), and an indexable page that carries nofollow gets the amber "Indexable, nofollow" verdict.
noindex is only one of the reasons. robots.txt may block the URL, so search engines never fetch it; the canonical tag may point to another URL, which then gets indexed instead; the page may answer with an error or a redirect; or the search engine has not crawled it yet or chose not to index it. This result shows the robots.txt rule and the canonical next to the noindex verdict. Whether Google has indexed the URL is confirmed in Search Console's URL Inspection tool - see how to check if a page is indexed.
To keep a page out of search results, use noindex and leave the page crawlable. A crawler that robots.txt blocks never fetches the page, so it never sees the noindex, and Google notes that a blocked URL can still appear in results, without a description, when other pages link to it. robots.txt is for managing crawling, for example keeping crawlers out of internal search or cart URLs. Test the rule for your URL with the robots.txt tester.
This checker reads the HTML as the server sends it and does not run JavaScript, so a robots tag that a script adds or changes is not in its result. Google warns that when it finds noindex it may skip rendering and JavaScript, so changing or removing noindex with a script may not work as expected. Put the directive you mean in the HTML itself or in the X-Robots-Tag header, where it is read on the first fetch.
Remove the directive from both places it can live: the robots meta tag in the template and any X-Robots-Tag header set by the server, CDN or a plugin. Run this check again to confirm the verdict reads "Indexable", and make sure robots.txt allows the URL. Then ask Google to recrawl the page with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console; otherwise the page comes back only after Googlebot's next visit, which can take months for some pages.
This checker reads one URL per check. For many pages at once, run the website crawler: it follows links from a start page, and its SEO information tab shows the index, follow and canonical status of the pages it reaches. To hear when a page changes later, turn on Indexability on an HTTP monitor: it reads the robots meta tag, the X-Robots-Tag header and the canonical tag on every check and sends a notice when one changes. It is included on the Solo, Business and Enterprise plans; the scheduled whole-site crawl is a beta enabled on request. See SEO monitoring.

Part of HostTracker's website monitoring software.