What is noindex?

While a noindex tag tells a bot or crawler not to add a page to the index of the search results, a disallow directive tells search engines not to crawl the page at all. This must be done through the robots.txt file and is sometimes used in tandem with noindex. 

While the disallow tag is a helpful tool, it is important to be extremely cautious when using a disallow directive. By disallowing a page, you are essentially removing it from your site in regards to search, and you are also removing its ability to pass PageRank — the value given to a webpage by a search engine that allows it to appear in the SERPs. Accidentally disallowing the wrong page — a page that drives traffic to your site, for example — can have disastrous effects on traffic and your SEO tactics. 

Why Should I Disallow a Page?

Disallowing pages that have no reader or SEO value use can make your site quicker for bots to crawl and index. An example would be the search function on an e-commerce site. While the search function provides value to the user, the various pages it retrieves are not necessarily pages that add SEO value to your site.  

Combining Noindex and Disallow

If there are external links or canonical tags — tags that tell bots which page from a group of similar pages should be indexed — pointing to a page that has been disallowed, it could still be indexed and ranked, even though it cannot be crawled. This means that it could still show up in a SERPs.

To apply both directives, add them both into the robot.txt file. For example:

• Disallow: /example-folder/example-page.html
• Noindex: /example-folder/example-page.html 

What Is a Nofollow Meta Tag?

A nofollow tag is used to tell search engines not to evaluate the merit of the links (or a specific link) that exist on a page. Nofollow meta directives also tell bots not to discover more URLs within the site by setting all of the links to “nofollow” — by default all links on a page are set to be followed. You can either add a nofollow tag to individual links, or blanket nofollow them via a robots meta tag in the page’s HTML header. Nofollow links can be used as an SEO tactic to be able to link to pages they wish to provide to the reader, without the bot or crawler associating that page with their own. 

For example, a single nofollowed link might look like:

<a href=”https://example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>

While a nofollow meta tag in the header would look like this:

<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow”>

When Should I Nofollow Links?

Nofollow tags are useful when applied to links that you may not directly control, such as links in comment sections, inorganic or non-relevant paid links, guest posts, links to something off-topic to the website or page, or an embed such as a widget or infographic. 

What Is Noindex Nofollow?

Adding a nofollow tag to a link won’t prevent the linked page from being crawled or indexed, though it prevents an association or passing of authority between the linked pages. 

To simultaneously command bots not to index a page or follow the links on it, you would simply combine the noindex, nofollow definitions into one meta tag. For example:

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>

If you do not wish for Google to crawl the page completely, you will still need to disallow it.