Noindex and nofollow link rules have the power to make or destroy a page’s indexing. These are typically used in tandem, however, occasionally they are confused with one another or used improperly.
So, how should they be used and when?
Both of these attribute settings can be added to links to guide crawlers in the right direction. Hence, their definitions first:
What Is nofollow?
Nofollow demonstrates that a link shouldn’t be used to pass on authority or for any other purpose related to page rankings. The nofollow property removes this or returns a null value if we use the example of links being a vote or endorsement.
It is coded into a link as <a rel=”nofollow”…>.
Noindex: What Is It?
Noindex is a page-level attribute rather than a link-level attribute. It demonstrates why the page on which it appears shouldn’t be submitted for indexing. Despite this, it is still possible to crawl the website and follow connections that lead from it.
It is coded as <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”> in the page’s head.
Also Read: Best Practices for Internal Links in SEO in 2022
How and when we will use them
Noindex and nofollow can be used in a variety of situations, but typically they are applied to pages that you don’t want to be indexed or to transfer authority. Staging sites, pages you wish to be a little bit more secret, and alternative versions to prevent duplication are some examples.
However, there are subtleties to their use, which frequently results in abuse. Below, I’ll go over them in more detail.
When you need to use nofollow
Nofollow focuses primarily on reducing spam and limiting the number of links that are crawled to and from websites. By limiting the number of links between pages, this helps prevent potential penalties.
This shouldn’t be viewed as protection against being indexed because it won’t prohibit pages from being indexed in any way.
Other Crawlers
Although Google or Bing may honour a certain command, this does not imply that other crawlers would. All crawlers are not created equal. Don’t make something public if you genuinely don’t want it to be searchable. All these instructions are fully ignorable by other crawlers.
Canonicals And Alternatives
Although there are frequently better ways to handle them, it’s OK to use a noindex tag because of alternate URLs. A hreflang tag is required if you have duplicate pages as a result of language differences. Similarly, canonical tags may help you make the most of your scenario if you have options since the text is slightly different.
Also Read: On Page SEO Factors
Guidelines are Ignored
Noindex is occasionally disregarded, and you may encounter phrases like “Indexed, but prohibited by ‘noindex’ tag’” in Google Search Console. This simply says that Google considers the page worthy of indexing despite the noindex tag, for whatever reason. In this situation, you’ll need to consider other options or perhaps remove the noindex tag from that page to make things simpler.
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