How to Fix Excluded by noindex Tag

There are various methods a website URL can send NOINDEX directive telling search engines like Google to NOT index certain parts of a website. This is to block indexing of URLs.

What is Excluded ‘noindex’ tag in Page indexing Report?

URL is excluded from Google indexing process due to Googlebot seeing noindex directive. Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’ issues must be addressed for proper maintainence of a website.

Video Lesson for Fixing Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag Errors

Places to Check for Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag Errors

Some SEO Plugins (like Yoast) allow insertion of meta tags like this <meta name=“robots” content=“noindex”> Check web page source code (CTR+U on your keyboard) using Google Chrome to see if there are any noindex meta tags. If there is, remove the noindex meta tag.

You can also use Google Chrome Web Developer Toolbar (Press F12 on your keyboard) and look at Network Tab > Response Headers If there is a response header with noindex directive?

This means either your Content Management System is using PHP header response code that may look like this (WordPress CMS example below): <?php if ( is_tag() ) { header("X-Robots-Tag: noindex", true); } ?> Or .htaccess file is sending header response code that include noindex directive which looks like this: <IfModule mod_headers.c> Header set X-Robots-Tag “noindex” </IfModule> To remedy excluded by noindex tag errors in Search Console Page indexing reports for such scenarios, simply remove the noindex directives whether it is sent through meta tags, PHP or .htaccess file.

How to Fix Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag

All you need to do is identify how Google’s user-agent (Googlebot) is coming across noindex directive (be it through seeing a meta tag or noindex header response code) and then simply remove the noindex directive from the web page so that Google can crawl and index that URL Search Console Page indexing report is showing.