Question 1

What is a robots meta tag?

Accepted Answer

A robots meta tag is an HTML <meta> element that tells search engines how to crawl and index a specific page. Unlike robots.txt which applies to a whole site, robots meta tags are page-level controls.

Question 2

What is the difference between noindex and nofollow?

Accepted Answer

noindex tells search engines not to include the page in their index (it won't appear in search results). nofollow tells them not to follow the links on that page to other pages. They can be combined: noindex, nofollow hides both the page and its outbound link equity.

Question 3

Should I use noindex on every page?

Accepted Answer

No. Only use noindex on pages you don't want in search results: admin pages, internal search results, thank-you pages, draft content, staging environments. Indexable pages like articles, products and home pages should remain indexable.

Question 4

Is robots meta tag the same as robots.txt?

Accepted Answer

No. robots.txt is a file at the site root that controls crawling for entire directories. The robots meta tag is per-page. Use robots.txt to block crawling of /admin/ and robots meta tag to hide a single thank-you page.

📑 Indexing

🔗 Link Following

📦 Snippets

🖼️ Image Indexing

🗄️ Cache / Archive

🌐 Translate

📊 Max Snippet

🖼️ Max Image Preview

🎬 Max Video Preview