Glossary/SEO & Content/Noindex Directive
SEO & Content
Noindex Directive
A meta robots or HTTP header instruction telling search engines not to include a page in their search results.
By Brandon Mina·CEO, BrandPilot AI·Updated November 2026
Short answer
A noindex directive is a meta robots tag or HTTP header instruction telling search engines not to include a page in their search results. It is used for thin, private, duplicate or utility pages such as internal search results or thank-you pages. Crawlers must be able to access the page to see the directive.