Noindex is a meta tag with which you can control search engine indexing. If you select an individual text fragment and close it with the noindex tag, it will not be indexed by the search engine. If you want to understand more about what noindex is and how it can be used, read this article.
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How does noindex work?
Noindex can be located anywhere in HTML code, regardless of the level. The tag should be used in the following format: <!–noindex–>text place<!–/noindex–>. Many webmasters use it not for its intended purpose, which began to spread rumors that noindex is a lazy and not entirely honest method of optimization.
The fact is that the use of this tag from the search robot hides non-unique content or high-quality text containing no keywords designed for the perusal of the site visitor. At the same time, the search engine is offered a text full of keyword phrases, which are difficult for humans to perceive.
Search engines analyze the text, closed tag noindex, doing its indexing, but then filtering out the hidden content. As a result of studying the content of the page, the search engine may decide to impose sanctions on the site if it considers that its owner is using abusive techniques to influence search engine results.
Why should I use noindex?
Here are some of the advantages you get from using noindex:
- When secondary information is hidden, using noindex can increase keyword density and increase the relevance of the page being indexed.
- Noindex allows you to hide the content of through-blocks that are duplicated on several pages and negatively affect the site’s position in search engine results.
- This meta tag can be used to hide unwanted or proprietary information that sometimes gets into a snippet.
Does noindex have alternatives?
Yes, noindex has alternatives – in case you don’t want to use this meta tag for some reason. These alternatives refer to manually hiding content by contacting search engine support. Here are the elements that can be hidden this way:
- Admin bar.
- Duplicated content – archives, tags, search results.
- Unpublished content.
- Various metrics.
- Documents containing comments, reviews, and posts.
- Background information (contacts, links), which should not appear in the results.
- Content that is constantly updated and does not make sense to index.
What is the difference between noindex and nofollow?
If you’ve heard of noindex, you’ve probably heard of nofollow as well. At first glance, these tags have the same purpose, but if you look deeper into the matter, it becomes clear that they are not. Nofollow is responsible for preventing search engine robots from following links on the page.
This attribute can be applied either to the entire page or added next to a specific URL. Unlike noindex, nofollow applies only to links, not to any content. Why would that be necessary? The point is that links that are published on a page can pass their weight to it. And if the resource to which it leads is not of high quality, it may have a negative impact on the site where it is located.
