⭐ Beginner — No coding experience needed

Page Set to Noindex? Here is What to Do — Beginner's Guide

A noindex tag is a tiny piece of code that can silently remove your page from Google search results completely. Most people who have it on their page do not even know it is there — it was either added by accident or left over from when the site was being built. This guide explains exactly what noindex means, how to find it on your page, and how to remove it safely — step by step, with no coding experience needed.

⏱ About 20 minutes 🛠 Notepad++ & FileZilla required 📄 You will edit one HTML file 🟢 Suitable for complete beginners

What you will learn in this guide

What noindex means and exactly what it does to your page in Google
Why noindex tags end up on pages by accident
How to check if your page has a noindex tag
When noindex is correct and should be left alone
How to safely remove a noindex tag using Notepad++
How to upload your fixed file back to your website using FileZilla
How to ask Google to re-index your page after you have fixed it

🛠️ Before You Start — Tools You Need New to editing website files? You need Notepad++ and FileZilla set up before following this tutorial. Open Setup Guide →

1 What does noindex mean?

Let us start from the very beginning so this makes complete sense before you touch anything.

What is Google's index?

Google keeps a giant list of web pages. This list is called the index. When someone searches on Google, Google looks through this list and shows the most relevant results. If your page is in the index, it can appear in search results. If it is not in the index, it is completely invisible — no matter how good it is.

So what does noindex mean?

Noindex is an instruction you can put on a page that tells Google: "Do not put this page in your index." The moment Google reads a noindex tag on your page, it removes that page from search results entirely. Gone. Invisible.

Where is the noindex tag?

The noindex tag lives inside the <head> section of your HTML file. It looks like this:

That one line — if it is on a page that should be visible in Google — is enough to make your page disappear from search results completely.

Is noindex always wrong?

No. Noindex is intentional and correct on certain pages. Pages you do not want Google to show in search results include:

Thank you pages — shown after someone fills in a form
Login or account pages
Admin or management pages
Duplicate pages that exist for technical reasons
Pages under construction that are not ready to go live

On every other page — your homepage, product pages, blog posts, about page, contact page, service pages — noindex should not be there.

Why do pages end up with noindex by accident?

This happens more often than you might think. Common reasons include:

The website was set to "hidden from search engines" while being built — and the setting was never turned off
Someone copied a template from a page that had noindex and forgot to remove it
A WordPress or CMS setting was accidentally left on "Discourage search engines"
A developer added noindex temporarily and forgot to remove it

In every case the result is the same — the page silently vanishes from Google with no warning whatsoever.

2 Check if your page has a noindex tag

There are two ways to check. You should do both — they take less than two minutes each.

Method 1 — Use the AIPageSEO audit tool

1 Go to the AIPageSEO audit tool Open a new browser tab and go to https://aipageseo.com/seo-audit-platform.html. You do not need an account.
2 Type your page address into the box Type the full address of the page you want to check. Always start with https:// — for example https://yourdomain.com. Then click Run Audit and wait.
3 Look for the NOINDEX result When the audit finishes, scroll down and look for a row called NOINDEX or Page Set to Noindex. If it shows a red flag, your page has a noindex tag. If it is green, your page is fine.

Method 2 — Check the page source yourself

1 Open your page in a browser Go to the page you want to check in your browser — for example https://yourdomain.com.
2 Right-click and choose View Page Source Right-click anywhere on the page. A small menu appears. Click View Page Source. A new tab opens showing the raw HTML code of your page. Do not worry — you do not need to understand all of it.
3 Search for the word noindex Press Ctrl + F on your keyboard. A search box appears. Type noindex and press Enter.
4 Read the result If the search finds nothing — your page does not have a noindex tag. You are fine. If it finds something and highlights a line — read that line carefully. You will see something like content="noindex". That is the problem tag. Write down the whole line — you will need to find it again in your HTML file.

3 Should you remove the noindex tag?

Before you remove anything, you need to decide whether the noindex tag is there on purpose or by accident. Removing it from the wrong page could cause problems.

Leave the noindex tag in place if the page is any of these

Page type	Should it have noindex?	Why
Thank you page after a form	✅ Yes — keep it	You do not want Google showing this page to people who have not filled in your form
Login or account page	✅ Yes — keep it	There is no benefit to Google indexing a login page
Admin or backend page	✅ Yes — keep it	Admin pages should never be visible in search results
A page still under construction	✅ Yes — keep it for now	Wait until the page is finished before removing noindex
A duplicate page	✅ Yes — keep it	Only the original version should be indexed

Remove the noindex tag if the page is any of these

Page type	Should it have noindex?	Why
Your homepage	❌ No — remove it	Your homepage must be indexed or your whole website is invisible
A product or service page	❌ No — remove it	These pages need to appear in Google to get customers
A blog post or article	❌ No — remove it	Content pages need to be indexed to drive organic traffic
Your about page	❌ No — remove it	About pages are important for trust signals and E-E-A-T
Your contact page	❌ No — remove it	Contact pages should be findable in Google

💡 Not sure which category your page falls into? Ask yourself this — would you be happy if a stranger found this page through a Google search? If yes, remove noindex. If no, leave it.

4 Remove the noindex tag from your HTML file

You have decided the noindex tag should not be on this page. Now follow these steps exactly to remove it safely.

1 Open FileZilla on your computer Click Start (Windows) or open the Applications folder (Mac) and open FileZilla. If you have not set it up yet, see the Before You Start guide linked at the top of this page.
2 Connect to your server Fill in the four boxes at the top of FileZilla. In the Host box type your domain name — for example yourdomain.com. In the Username box type your FTP username. In the Password box type your FTP password. Leave the Port box completely empty. Then click Quickconnect. The right panel will fill with your server files.
3 Open your website folder in the right panel In the right panel, double-click httpdocs if you use Plesk, or public_html if you use cPanel. You will now see a list of your website files.
4 Find the file for the page you need to fix Look for the HTML file that matches the page you are fixing. Your homepage is usually called index.html. Other pages are usually named after their URL — for example your about page at yourdomain.com/about will be a file called about.html.
5 Download a backup copy first — this is important Before you change anything, right-click the file and choose Download. In the left panel, find the downloaded file, right-click it and choose Rename. Rename it to something like index-backup.html. This is your safety copy. If anything goes wrong you can re-upload this file and start again.
6 Download your working copy to the Desktop Right-click the same file in the right panel again and choose Download. This time make sure your Desktop is selected in the left panel so the file saves to a place you can find it easily. This is the copy you will edit.
7 Open the file in Notepad++ Open Notepad++. At the top of the screen click File, then click Open. A window appears asking you to choose a file. Navigate to your Desktop, click on the HTML file you just downloaded, then click Open. The file will open showing lots of code. Do not worry — you only need to find one specific line.
8 Find the noindex tag Press Ctrl + F on your keyboard. A small search box appears at the bottom of Notepad++. Type noindex and press Enter. Notepad++ will jump straight to the line containing noindex and highlight it. You will see something like this:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

9 You have two choices for what to do next You can either change noindex to index, follow, or you can delete the line entirely. Both work. Here is the difference:

Option	What it looks like	When to use it
Change it	`<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">`	When you want to explicitly tell Google to index the page
Delete it	The line is completely removed	When you do not need a robots tag at all — Google indexes pages by default

For most people, changing it to index, follow is the safest option.

10 Change noindex to index, follow Click on the word noindex in the highlighted line. Double-click it to select it. Then type index, follow to replace it. The line should now look like this:
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
11 Check there are no other noindex tags Press Ctrl + F again and search for noindex once more. If Notepad++ finds another occurrence on a different line — check that line too and decide whether it should be there or not. Keep searching until no more results are found.
12 Save the file Press Ctrl + S on your keyboard. The small red dot on the file tab at the top of Notepad++ will disappear. That means the file is saved and ready to upload.

5 Upload your fixed file back to your website

Your file is fixed and saved on your computer. Now you need to put it back on your server so your website uses the new version.

1 Click on the FileZilla window in your taskbar FileZilla should still be open on your computer. Click on it in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen (Windows) or in the Dock (Mac). If it has disconnected, fill in the four boxes again and click Quickconnect.
2 Make sure the right panel shows your website files The right panel should still be showing your website files inside httpdocs or public_html. If it just shows a single /, double-click into the correct folder again.
3 Find your fixed file in the left panel The left panel shows files on your computer. Navigate to your Desktop. You should see your fixed HTML file there.
4 Upload the file Right-click the fixed file in the left panel and choose Upload. A box may appear asking if you want to overwrite the existing file — click OK or Overwrite. A progress bar appears at the bottom of FileZilla. When it disappears the upload is complete.
5 Check it worked in your browser Open a browser tab and go to your page. Right-click anywhere on the page and choose View Page Source. Press Ctrl + F and search for noindex. If the search finds nothing — the fix is live and working. If it still shows noindex, your browser may be showing a cached old version — try pressing Ctrl + F5 to force a fresh load.

6 Tell Google to re-index your page

Fixing the noindex tag on your website is only half the job. Google still thinks the page is blocked — because the last time it visited, that is what it saw. You need to tell Google to come back and look again.

1 Log in to Google Search Console Go to https://search.google.com/search-console and sign in with the Google account connected to your website. If you have not set up Google Search Console yet, search for "set up Google Search Console" and follow Google's official guide — it takes about 15 minutes and is free.
2 Use the URL Inspection tool At the top of the screen there is a search bar. Type the full address of the page you just fixed — for example https://yourdomain.com — and press Enter.
3 Read the current status Google Search Console will show you the current indexing status of your page. It may say "URL is not on Google" or "Excluded by noindex tag". That is expected — it is showing the old status before your fix. Do not worry.
4 Click Request Indexing Look for a button that says Request Indexing and click it. Google will confirm the request has been submitted. This tells Google to visit your page again as soon as possible.
5 Wait and check back Come back to Google Search Console after 24 to 48 hours and check the URL again. The status should now show as indexed. Once indexed, your page will start to appear in Google search results again. If the page had previously been indexed and had rankings, those rankings may take a few more days or weeks to return to their previous levels.

✅ Tutorial complete — your noindex tag is removed and Google has been asked to re-index your page.

7 Common mistakes to avoid

⚠ Removing noindex from a page that should have it Always check Section 3 of this guide before removing any noindex tag. Login pages, thank you pages, admin pages and duplicate pages should keep their noindex tags. Removing noindex from the wrong page could cause private or duplicate content to appear in Google search results.
⚠ Only fixing one page when many are affected If your entire website disappeared from Google — not just one page — the noindex may have been added to a template or a global setting rather than a single page. Check your homepage, a blog post, a product page and a service page separately. If they all have noindex, look for a global setting in your CMS or hosting panel that may be set to "discourage search engines" or "hide from search".
⚠ Expecting your rankings to recover immediately Even after Google re-indexes your page, your previous rankings may take time to return. If the page was blocked for a long time, Google needs to reassess its quality and relevance before restoring its position in search results. This is normal and can take days or weeks.
⚠ Forgetting to save before uploading If you forget to press Ctrl + S in Notepad++ before going back to FileZilla, you will upload the unchanged file with the noindex tag still in it. Always check the red dot on the Notepad++ tab is gone before uploading.
⚠ Not checking your CMS settings as well If you use WordPress or another CMS, noindex can sometimes come from a settings panel rather than from your HTML file directly. In WordPress, go to Settings → Reading and check whether "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is ticked. If it is, untick it and save. This one checkbox can noindex your entire website.

Written by

John

Founder, AIPageSEO

A noindex tag is one of the quietest ways a page can disappear from Google. There is no error message, no alarm, nothing — the page just stops showing up in search results and most people never find out why. I wrote this guide because catching it early takes two minutes, and fixing it takes two more.

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