Google Has Canceled Support For Robots.Txt No index

Google will stop obeying a Robots.Txt directive related to indexing according to an official statement made by Google.

websites relying on Robots.Txt Noindex still have time to choose an alternative till 1st September 2019. 

It might sound like some foreign term especially if you’re new to SEO but digital marketers understand how important it is.

Googlebot crawler adds a website into Google’s database by crawling through various webpages. Google ranks websites on SERPs based on this indexation. 

What does Robots.Txt do?

Robots.Txt is a command used by websites to inform Googlebot which pages on your site to crawl and which ones to avoid.

 It was used to optimize a website’s crawl-ability and make sure that the crawl bot or search engine spider doesn’t fall into any problem while going through a website. 

Why is Google cancelling Robots.Txt Noindex?

Robots.Txt Noindex is neither an official directive nor it is a fool-proof directive.

According to sources, it did fail in 8% of the cases and does more harm to a website.

 Even minor mistakes hurt the website’s ranking on SERPs that preferably webmasters didn’t want. 

Alternatives for Robots.Txt Noindex

Google didn’t want site publishers to feel helpless with this update. Hence they mentioned about the five alternatives in their blog. 

1. Noindex in Robots Meta Tags: The most effective way to stop URLs from being added to Google’s database is by avoiding URLs to be crawled by meta robots index. 
2. 404 and 410 HTTP Status Codes: Both these status means the webpage is not found or does not exist. Once crawled, these websites will be removed Google’s index.
3. Password Protection: Hiding a page behind password-protected login page will automatically remove the URL from Google’s index. 
4. Disallow in Robots.Txt: This is, however, the least effective method. You block a page from being crawled but Google can still index your webpage based on the links on other websites without actually seeing the content. 
5. Search Console Remove URL tool: This tool helps you quickly disable a URL from search engine results.  

Final Thoughts

Though Google has cancelled support for Robots.Txt Noindex, they have given us alternate options to do the work.

It is always good to try a few options before making it permanent for a long time. However, if you’re new to digital marketing and confused as to how to do it – contact SEO Services India, one of the best SEO company in India.

Their expert team can help you achieve your marketing goal and generate better ROI.  

• Published on
• August 13, 2020
• By
• SeoServicesIndia


• Categories: Latest News & Updates