Meta robots tag
An HTML tag that tells search engines, page by page, whether they may index it and follow the links.
By Tanguy De Keyzer · Founder & digital strategist
The meta robots tag is a piece of HTML in the <head> of a page that tells search engines, page by page, whether they may include it in the index and whether they may follow the links on it.
How does the meta robots tag work?
The tag contains directives such as index/noindex (may the page appear in the search results?) and follow/nofollow (should Google follow the links?). A page with <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> is not shown in Google, but its links still pass on authority. Unlike robots.txt, which governs crawling, the meta robots tag directly steers indexing. Important: for noindex to work, Google must be able to crawl the page.
When you use it
You use noindex for pages that are useful to visitors but add nothing in the search results: thank-you pages, login screens, thin filter variants or internal search results. This keeps your indexability sharp and prevents weak pages from crowding out your strong pages. For variants of the same content, a canonical tag is often a better choice than noindex.
The meta robots tag according to Customer Impact
One stray noindex on an important page can quietly tank your leads, so we check these tags carefully in every audit. For B2B sites we deploy the tag deliberately to focus Google on the pages that generate quotes and conversations. Honest and targeted: the goal is more qualified customers, not the largest possible number of indexed pages.
See also
From theory to growth.
We turn Meta robots tag into measurable results for your business.