Easy Steps to Fixing the 'Excluded by Noindex Tag' in GSC

Let it be said that in the realm of SEO nothing is more valuable than visibility. Websites aim to get top rankings on SERPs to drive quality traffic to their platforms organically. However, technical problems may occur with a site and one of them is the inability of a certain page to be indexed because of noindex tag. This tag serves as an order to the search engine not to include specific pages in its search result list. Although it is helpful in some situations, if applied inappropriately or incorrectly, it can have adverse effects on the site’s position in a search engine. This guide shows how to deal with problems resulting from this noindex tag and make your important pages detectable by the search engine.

Understanding the noindex Tag

Noindex is an HTML meta tag or an HTTP header that instructs search engines not to crawl a certain page.

This tag acts as a signal to the search engine that removes the given page from the index or does not allow it to be indexed in the first place. This can prove useful for pages that should not be viewed by the public, for example, login pages, thank-you pages, or internal search results pages. Yet, if it is used improperly, it can help useful pages not to be included into the index, which is not good for the site’s ranking.

How to Determine Which Pages are Affected by the noindex Tag

1. Google Search Console: To my knowledge, the best tool to determine which pages have been removed by the noindex tag is Google Search Console. Access the “Coverage” report and find the “Excluded” tab. Here you can see the list of pages that were excluded from indexation with the help of the tag noindex.

2. Crawling Tools: You can use an SEO Spider tool like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs or SEMrush to crawl your site and see which pages have this error applied. These tools give overall reports that show the specific web pages affected.

3. Manual Check: It is also possible to examine a single web page and look for the error in the source code of the specific page. While this method is somewhat slow, it can prove effective in checking a particular page or two at a time.

Cause of Unintentional noindex Tag Implementation

1. Development Oversight: While in the developmental stages, pages may be configured to noindex so that they do not get indexed until they are fully prepared. If this tag is not removed before the site goes live, the site can have indexing problems.

2. CMS Settings: Maybe there are settings or plugins such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal that allow to use noindex tag to some pages. Configuration issues such as incorrect settings or outdated configurations can inadvertently cause the exclusion of pages.

3. Robots.txt: Sometimes, the noindex directive can be included in the robots. txt file which may override all other aspects of the document.

Fixing the ‘noindex’ Tag Problem

1. Remove the noindex Tag: As soon as you find out which pages are noindexed, the primary method of dealing with it is to delete this tag. If the noindex directive is in the HTTP header, then you should change server settings to remove it if necessary.

2. CMS Configuration: If your CMS is currently applying this error, then the settings need to be changed. For WordPress, navigate to ‘Settings’ then ‘Reading’ and make sure that the box that says ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’ is clear. Furthermore, study SEO plugins such as Yoast or All in One SEO Pack to check for the presence of errors.

3. undefined txt: If the noindex directive is in your robots.txt file, connect to the site through FTP or your file management system and edit or delete the directive. If alterations are required, make sure that the appropriate grammar rules are applied.

4. Use a Site-wide Search and Replace Tool: Larger sites can make the process inefficient to remove noindex tags using their browsers on each of the pages. For instance, there is a WordPress plugin known as the Better Search Replace Tool which enables the user to look for the error and replace it in several pages at a time.

Verification

After making the necessary changes, it is crucial to verify that the issues have been resolved:

1. Re-crawl the Site: As for the second step, turn to Google Search Console and ask the search engine for re-indexing of the affected pages. This can help to guarantee that Googlebot re-indexes the pages with no error.

2. Check Coverage Report: Check the “Coverage” report in Google Search Console to see whether the site that you banned from indexing has been removed from the index.

3. SEO Auditing Tools: Perform fresh SEO audits by Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or others to verify the no-index tags were eliminated.

4. Monitor Traffic and Rankings: Monitor your organic traffic and rank. You should see improvements as the previously excluded sites start to surface in the search results.

Conclusion

The noindex tag is one of the most effective ways of managing which sites are indexed by search engines; however, it should be used with caution. It is not very wise to apply this tag accidentally, as it can cause severe SEO problems to your site and reduce the traffic to it. To fix the excluded ‘noindex’ tag, it is crucial to audit your site frequently, use suitable tools and barometric CMS configurations.

Addressing these problems immediately will ensure that your website continues to rank well in search engines; it will also increase the number of visitors that your site receives via natural search results.