What this means
The page has a <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag or an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header with noindex. This tells search engines not to include the page in their index. The JSON field is noindex.
Detection condition
Triggered when RobotsNoindex == true. SEODiff checks both the HTML meta tag and the X-Robots-Tag response header.
Impact on scores
Severity weight: 12. Deductions: −50 on Indexability, −25 on Content. This is one of the highest-impact issues because it completely prevents indexing.
When noindex is correct
- Admin/login pages — should not be indexed.
- Thank-you/confirmation pages — transactional, not useful in search.
- Paginated archive pages — some strategies noindex pagination.
- Staging environments — should always have noindex.
When noindex is a bug
- Left over from staging: The most common cause — a global noindex was added during development and never removed.
- CMS settings: WordPress "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" checkbox left checked.
- Plugin/theme conflict: A security or SEO plugin adding noindex unexpectedly.
How to fix
- Check if the noindex is intentional. If not, remove the meta tag or header.
- In WordPress: Settings → Reading → uncheck "Discourage search engines".
- Check your web server config for X-Robots-Tag headers.
- Verify with a re-scan that the noindex is gone.