You use noindex for thank-you pages, test pages or internal pages, for example. That way, only your valuable pages are visible in Google.
What does this mean in practice?
Noindex is an instruction in the meta robots tag or in an HTTP header. It asks search engines not to include a page in the search results. The crawler may still visit the page, but won't show it to people searching.
Why does this matter for your business?
Not every page belongs in Google. Thank-you pages after a form, test versions, client areas or internal search results only clutter the results. With noindex, the focus stays on your valuable content.
Examples and best practices
- Use noindex for thank-you pages, the shopping basket and customer accounts.
- Set a test version of your entire website to noindex too.
- Never set noindex on service pages that need to bring in customers.
- After go-live, check that noindex has been removed where it doesn't belong.
How we do it at Ikoon
On Ikoon websites, noindex is only used where it belongs: on preview versions, the shopping basket, confirmation pages and test environments. Your service pages are always open to Google. That's part of the standard SEO structure.