How to Stop Google from - Indexing your Site?
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Follow this free Step-by-Step How-to stop Google from indexing your Pages for beginners! No need to code.
Updated April 7, 2024.
Time of reading: 2 min
Level of Difficulty: Beginners
🦔 You can skip to a specific step if you have already done a thing or two from the list.
Add a 'No-index' Tag on your whole Website
You are still making your website and you don’t want to show any of it on Google?
Adding a ‘No-index’ tag in the <head> of your Website Site-Wide is maybe the easiest and best way to do it.
You just need to copy the short code in below in the Header of your website and set it for every page.
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>
Here is how to do it on WordPress.
Follow these easy steps:
1. Install the Plugin Header Footer Code Manager (or any other Header Code Manager Plug-in)
2. Click on the installed Plugin and choose ‘Add New’
3. Give a name to your Snippet (for example – ‘Noindex Whole Website’) – Select HTML, Site-Wide and Header.
4. Copy the snippet code <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”> and paste it in the open field.
5. Make sure to click on ‘Save’
That’s it. Don’t forget to delete the snippet from the Plugin once your site is ready for you. It is really easy to do. Just go to ‘All Snippets’ and delete it in a second.
Use a 'No-index' Tag to the desired Page
If you need to no-index a specific page on your website, there’s a quicker way than adding the <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”> by yourself like in above.
With just a single click, you can easily no-index a page on your website, and it will automatically generate the necessary short code <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”> in the head section of the desired page.
Here is how to do it using YoastSEO or any other similar SEO plugin.
Follow these easy steps.
1. Install YoastSEO. Here is how to install a Plug-in on WordPress.
2. Find the Page you don’t want to be indexed in ‘Pages’ and click ‘Edit’
3. Scroll down to ‘Advance’ and click on it.
4. Change the status of ‘Allow search engines to show this Page in search results?’ to ‘No‘
Here you just need to tick ‘No’ under every page you don’t want to be indexed.
That’s it. Do it for every page that you don’t want to index on Search Engines.
Remove a Page from Index using Search Console
If one or more of your web pages that you don’t want to be indexed are already visible in Google Results – just do the following to de-index:
1. Go to Google Search Console, or set it up if you haven’t done so already. Here is the official guide on how to set up Google Search Console.
2. In the left-hand menu, click on ‘Index Coverage’.
3. Find the ‘Removals’ tab and click on it.
4. Click on ‘New Request’.
5. Enter the indexed URL that you don’t want to appear on Google.
6. Select ‘Remove this URL only’ and click ‘Next.’
By following these steps, you can request that Google removes the URL from their search index. Keep in mind that this process may take some time and does not guarantee that the URL will be removed permanently.
Please note that all submitted requests are temporarily removed from Google’s index. If you want to make your page visible again, simply go to the ‘Removals’ section and click on the three dots to the right of the ‘Submitted Request’. Then, click on ‘Cancel Request’, and your page will become eligible for indexing again.”
All in all, these 3 Methods can be particularly useful if you have pages that are under construction, contain outdated content, or should not be publicly accessible for other reasons.