Robots meta tag
Toggle the rules you need and get the meta tag and matching X-Robots-Tag header, with a plain-English line on what Google will do.
The page can appear in results.
Meta tag
<!-- No restrictions: the default is index, follow. No tag needed. -->Robots meta tag rules Google supports
| Rule | Effect in Google Search |
|---|---|
| all | No restrictions. The default; writing it has no effect. |
| noindex | Do not show the page in search results. |
| nofollow | Do not follow the links on the page. |
| none | Same as noindex, nofollow. |
| nosnippet | No text snippet or video preview. Also prevents use as a direct input for AI Overviews. |
| indexifembedded | Allow indexing of the content when embedded in another page through an iframe, despite noindex. |
| max-snippet:[n] | Use at most n characters as a text snippet. |
| max-image-preview:[setting] | none, standard or large image preview size. |
| max-video-preview:[n] | At most n seconds of video preview. |
| notranslate | Do not offer a translation of the page in results. |
| noimageindex | Do not index images on the page. |
| unavailable_after:[date] | Do not show the page after the date/time (RFC 822, RFC 850 or ISO 8601). |
No longer used by Google: noarchive, nocache and nositelinkssearchbox. Combine rules with commas, and if rules conflict Google applies the more restrictive one.
Check a live page's rules, including the HTTP header, with the meta tag checker.
Questions
What is the robots meta tag?
A <meta name="robots" content="…"> tag in the page head that tells search engines whether to index the page, follow its links, and how to present it in results. The same rules can be sent as an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header, which also works for PDFs and images.
Do I need a robots meta tag on normal pages?
No. Without one, the default is index, follow. Only add it when you want to restrict something, or to grant larger previews with max-image-preview:large.
Robots meta tag or robots.txt?
robots.txt controls crawling; the robots meta tag controls indexing. To keep a page out of Google, use noindex and let Google crawl the page. If robots.txt blocks the page, Google never sees the noindex and the URL can still be indexed from links.
Does noarchive still do anything?
Not in Google Search. Google lists noarchive among historical rules it no longer uses, because the cached-page feature was removed. Other search engines may still honour it.