How to Remove Noindex Tag in WordPress: A Complete Guide

How to remove noindex tag in WordPress: The noindex tag in WordPress tells search engines not to index specific pages or posts, and this can negatively impact your website being listed in search results. The tag is normally used for staging websites, admin pages, and data that website owners do not want to be public. When used incorrectly, however, it will prevent valuable web pages from being included in search rankings, leading to reduced traffic and opportunities lost.

One of the biggest challenges with the noindex tag is that it’s simple to apply it by mistake through WordPress settings, SEO plugins, or theme settings. The majority of website owners don’t realize that they’ve enabled this setting until they notice that their content is not being indexed by Google or other search engines. This is particularly damaging for businesses that rely on organic traffic for leads and sales.

In this guide, we will show you how to verify, locate, and eliminate the noindex tag from WordPress so that your site can be fully indexed by search engines. By doing this, you can increase the visibility of your site, improve search engine rankings, and ensure your quality content reaches your target audience.

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The noindex meta tag tells search engines not to include a page in search results. It is commonly used in cases where you don’t want certain pages—like admin pages, duplicate content, or thank-you pages—to be indexed.

Example of a Noindex Tag:

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

If this tag appears in your website’s source code, search engines will ignore the page for ranking.

The noindex tag may appear in WordPress due to various reasons, often unintentionally. While it is useful for certain situations like preventing duplicate content from appearing in search results, it can sometimes be applied incorrectly, leading to deindexing of important pages.

One common cause is enabling the Search Engine Visibility option in WordPress settings, which tells search engines to avoid indexing the entire site.

Additionally, SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math may automatically set specific pages or entire content types to noindex if misconfigured. Website owners may unknowingly select these settings while managing their content, affecting visibility in search rankings.

Other sources of noindex tags include modifications made in the robots.txt file, specific theme settings, or even custom code injected into the WordPress functions file.

Another overlooked factor is that some WordPress themes and plugins can add noindex directives by default, especially those designed for membership sites, landing pages, or private content. Developers may also add these tags during staging or development, forgetting to remove them when the site goes live.

Understanding the possible sources of the noindex tag is the first step in troubleshooting and resolving indexing issues effectively. The noindex tag may appear in WordPress for several reasons:

• Discouraging search engines during site development.
• Yoast SEO settings accidentally marking pages as noindex.
• Robots.txt file blocking indexing for specific sections.
• Themes and plugins adding noindex directives.
• Manual edits made to the header or functions file.

To determine if your WordPress pages are noindexed, follow these steps:

Method 1: View Page Source

1. Open your website in a browser.
2. Right-click on the page and select View Page Source.
3. Search (CTRL + F on Windows, CMD + F on Mac) for noindex.

Method 2: Use Google Search Console

1. Go to Google Search Console.
2. Navigate to URL Inspection Tool.
3. Enter a URL and check if Google reports it as Excluded (Noindex).

WordPress Built-in Search Engine Visibility Setting

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Settings → Reading.
3. Locate the Search Engine Visibility option.
4. If the box for “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is checked, uncheck it.
5. Click Save Changes.

If you’re using Yoast SEO, it may have added the noindex tag to specific pages.

1. Open the WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to Yoast SEO → Search Appearance.
3. Click on Content Types and check the settings for posts and pages.
4. Ensure that Show in search results is set to Yes.

For individual posts or pages:

1. Edit the page.
2. Scroll to the Yoast SEO section.
3. Under Advanced, ensure the Allow search engines to show this page option is set to Yes.
4. Update the page.

If you use Rank Math SEO, follow these steps:

1. Edit the page or post.
2. Scroll to the Rank Math SEO settings.
3. Click on Advanced.
4. Ensure the Robots Meta is set to index, follow.
5. Save the changes.

The robots.txt file can also block search engines from indexing certain pages.

1. Go to WordPress Dashboard → SEO Plugin → Tools.
2. Select robots.txt Editor.
3. Look for Disallow: / or Noindex directives.
4. If found, remove or modify them.
5. Click Save Changes.

Some WordPress themes insert noindex directives in the header file.

• Go to Appearance → Theme Editor.
• Open header.php.
• Look for this code:

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

• If present, remove it and save changes.

A developer may have added a noindex tag in functions.php.

• Navigate to Appearance → Theme Editor.
• Open functions.php.
• Look for this line:

add_action(‘wp_head’, function() {

   echo ‘<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”>’;

});

• If found, delete it and update the file.

If manual methods don’t work, consider using a plugin like Remove Noindex Meta Tag.

1. Install and activate the plugin.
2. Go to Settings → Remove Noindex.
3. Enable removal of noindex directives.
4. Click Save Changes.

After removing noindex tags, ask Google to recrawl your site.

1. Open Google Search Console.
2. Use the URL Inspection Tool.
3. Click Request Indexing.
4. Wait a few days and check if the page is indexed.

Sometimes, caching plugins store old versions of your site, preventing changes from applying.

1. Clear the WordPress cache using WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, or SiteGround Optimizer.
2. Clear your browser cache.
3. Use an incognito window to check the source code again.

Regularly check Google Search Console to ensure your pages are being indexed correctly.

• Look under Coverage Reports for Excluded Pages.
• If pages still appear as Noindex, revisit previous steps.

• Noindex Doesn’t Always Mean No Visibility Even if a page is marked as noindex, Google can still discover and crawl it. If there are backlinks pointing to the page, Google may show it in search results under special conditions.
• Noindex Can Be Used Strategically
• Webmasters use noindex for specific purposes, such as preventing duplicate content penalties, keeping private sections hidden from search engines, and controlling the crawl budget.
• Google May Ignore Noindex in Some Cases
• If a page has high authority and multiple backlinks, Google might still display it in search results despite the noindex tag.
• Some WordPress Themes Automatically Add Noindex
• Certain WordPress themes and frameworks include noindex directives in their default settings, which can inadvertently block pages from appearing in search results.
• Removing Noindex Can Take Time to Show Results
• Even after removing noindex, it may take days or weeks for search engines to recrawl and index your pages. Submitting a manual request in Google Search Console speeds up the process.

Ensuring search engines can correctly index your material depends on removing the noindex tag from PHP. Whether it’s a PHP environment, SEO plugin setup, robots.txt directive, or theme code, closely following the guidelines above will assist fix indexing problems. Remember to clean cache, resubmit sites to Google, and track your search engine results for any enhancements once noindex is deleted.

Frequent SEO audits also help to guarantee that noindex tags or other indexing problems never recur. To keep appropriate search visibility, monitor Google Search Console data, look for crawling mistakes, and routinely update sitemaps. By keeping proactive with indexing checks, you will assist your site retain excellent SEO performance and prevent inadvertent deindexing going forward.

Finally, should your website still have indexing problems even after noindex instructions have been removed, think about looking at server-side setups, page load speed problems, and internal linking structure correctness. Search engines give quick, easily navigable, well-structured websites top priority, therefore fixing these aspects combined with eliminating noindex will increase the visibility and ranking of your site.