Ensure that any pages that instruct user agents in this way can be crawled. If a page has never been indexed, a ban robots.txt rule should be enough to prevent it from showing up in search results, but it is still recommended to add a robots meta tag. Added robots directives to robots.txt Although it was never officially supported by Google, it was possible to add a noindex directive to your site's robots.txt file and have it enforced. This is no longer the case, something which was confirmed by Google in 2019 . Removing pages with a noindex directive from sitemaps If you try to remove a page from the index using a noindex directive, leave the page in the sitemap until this is done. Deleting the page before it has been deindexed may cause delays in this process.
Accidental blocking of search engines Last Review when crawling an entire site Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for bot guidelines used in a staging environment to be left in place by accident when the site moves to a live server, and the results can be disastrous. Before migrating a site from a staging platform to a live environment, verify that the bot guidelines in place are correct. You can use Semrush's Site Audit tool before migrating to a live platform to find pages that are blocked by either meta robots tags or the X-robots-Tag directive.
And how to use them, you can avoid technical SEO mistakes. Having sufficient control over how your pages are crawled and indexed can, among other things, help keep unwanted pages off the SERPs, prevent search engines from following unnecessary links, and put you in control. about how snippets from your site appear. Start configuring your meta robots and x-robots tags to ensure your site runs smoothly! Perform a technical site audit with the Semrush Site Audit tool Try for free → ADS illustration Share Find keyword ideas in seconds Boost your SEO results with powerful keyword research Enter a keyword Free Keyword Research Tool OLIVIER AMICI In charge of marketing .