What Is Meta Robots Tag? | Indexing & Crawl Control in SEO

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What Is Meta Robots Tag in SEO? Meaning, Directives & Best Practices

What Is the Meta Robots Tag and Why It’s Important for SEO

The meta robots tag is an HTML element placed in the <head> section of a webpage. It tells search engine crawlers how they should treat the page in terms of indexing (whether the page should appear in search results) and following links on that page.

In short, the meta robots tag gives explicit instructions to search engines on how to handle your content during crawling and indexing.

📍 Example of a Meta Robots Tag:

This tells search engines:

index: include this page in search results
follow: follow and crawl the links on the page

✅ Common Meta Robots Directives:

Directive	Meaning
`index`	Allow the page to be indexed
`noindex`	Prevent the page from appearing in search results
`follow`	Allow search engines to follow links on the page
`nofollow`	Do not follow any links on the page
`noarchive`	Prevent search engines from storing a cached version
`nosnippet`	Prevent search engines from showing a text snippet in results

You can also combine directives:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">

This means: Don’t show this page in search results, but do follow its links.

✅ Why the Meta Robots Tag Matters:

Control Indexing – Prevent low-value or duplicate pages from appearing in search
Guide Crawl Budget – Focus crawlers on your most important content
Protect Private or Utility Pages – Block login pages, thank-you pages, staging content
Fix SEO Issues – Easily resolve unintentional indexing with SEO Audit Service

🧠 Meta Robots Tag vs. Robots.txt

Meta Robots Tag	Robots.txt File
Controls indexing at the page level	Controls crawling at the URL level
Placed inside HTML head	Placed at root of domain
Page must be crawlable to read this tag	Can block pages before they're crawled

👉 For precise indexing, use meta robots. For large-scale crawl control, use robots.txt.

🛠️ Best Practices:

Use `noindex` for:

Duplicate content pages
Thin content or filter results
Internal-only pages

Use `index, follow` for:

Blog posts, landing pages, service pages (default setting)

Avoid overuse of `nofollow`, especially on internal links — it can harm link flow

Need help configuring this tag across your website? Check our On-Page Optimization Service or run a detailed Technical SEO Audit

📌 Pro Tip:

Always test your meta robots settings using tools like Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool to ensure Google is handling your pages as intended.

🎯 Want to take full control over how search engines crawl and index your website?

Let SEO Manual Submission handle your technical SEO with precision. Get started with our SEO Packages or Request a Free Website Audit.

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What Is Meta Robots Tag? | Indexing & Crawl Control in SEO