Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. How to change noindex to index?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How to change noindex to index?

    Technical SEO
    3
    13
    5697
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • markgreggs
      markgreggs last edited by

      Hey,

      I've recently upgraded to a pro SEOmoz account and have realised i have 14574 issues to do with 'blocked by meta-robot' and that 'This page is being kept out of the search engine indexes by the meta tag , which may have a value of "noindex", keeping this page out of the index.'

      How can i change this so my pages get indexed?

      I read somewhere that i need to change my privacy settings but that thread was 3 years old and now the WP Dashboard has updated..

      Please let me know

      Many thanks, Jamie

      P.s Im using WordPress 3.5

      And i have the XML sitemap plugin

      And i have no idea where to look for this robots.txt file..

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • evolvingSEO
        evolvingSEO last edited by

        Answered below as well, but wanted to drop this here in case anyone else is looking. WP has changed the location of what used to be "Privacy" under settings. The functionality (which blocks search engines from your wordpress installation) is now under Settings->Reading

        [Screenshot](Hi Mark Did you find it? I struggled too for a bit, but it's moved to Settings->Reading See this screenshot -Dan)

        -Dan

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • evolvingSEO
          evolvingSEO @markgreggs last edited by

          Hi Mark

          Did you find it? I struggled too for a bit, but it's moved to Settings->Reading

          See this screenshot

          -Dan

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • markgreggs
            markgreggs @markgreggs last edited by

            Just updated it to this: http://gyazo.com/4a8a008055abbd563f96bf29b6b259a6.png?1357651763

            And then checked my page sources and they're still 'noindex' - why can't i correct this?!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • markgreggs
              markgreggs @markgreggs last edited by

              Just installed it and now its added this field into my settings>Reading

              http://gyazo.com/0be601793fc1cb866d918ea61e7d8ec1.png?1357649141

              What do i need to change to allow it to index all my pages?

              (Don't want to type something in that will block all my pages 😮 )

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • markgreggs
                markgreggs @markgreggs last edited by

                Just asked the WordPress Forums and one of their reply was to install this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-robots-txt/

                Just seems to add the privacy tab again so i can set the settings to: I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers

                Like you first stated 🙂

                Will install it now and see how it goes 🙂

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • loopyal
                  loopyal @markgreggs last edited by

                  It could be that the older wordpress had a setting that this new version has decided to ignore. This is typical of programmers!

                  The next possibility is to look in the database, but the options part of the database is hard to read.

                  Another idea is to look in the code of the the theme and hack it, so it is permanently index, follow or just remove that altogether.

                  Maybe someone else has a better idea?

                  Alan

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • markgreggs
                    markgreggs @markgreggs last edited by

                    If i remember correctly my pages were still not being indexed before i installed the all in one SEO pack.

                    Here is my settings for the SEO pack: http://gyazo.com/6b4dddacb307bdacfdd7741894e0356b.png?1357647136

                    As you can see they are as you explained.

                    Any other ideas?

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • loopyal
                      loopyal @markgreggs last edited by

                      Yes, I would have them indexed in that case too.

                      I think it is the categories that are noindex.

                      I think this is an 'All in one SEO pack' adjustable feature.

                      In the  setup for that, look for a checkbox:

                      "use noindex for categories"

                      uncheck that if it is checked.

                      If that isn't it, I don't know the answer

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • markgreggs
                        markgreggs @markgreggs last edited by

                        Thanks again for your reply Alan.

                        Currently the site is still in its final stages of development and once my automated system is finally built and implemented then I won't need to be changing any of the index pages except posting a few blogs once in a week or so.

                        So i think it would benefit me more to have each of my index pages getting indexed but then again I'm not sure on how to go about allowing them to be indexed due to WordPress' update.

                        My plugins are all highly downloaded and i use the 'All in one SEO pack' - if that may be the problem? I've gone through all the settings and the noindex buttons are all anticked.

                        Perhaps it could be the initial theme i used?

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • loopyal
                          loopyal @markgreggs last edited by

                          Thank you Mark

                          Nice looking site!

                          Your front page is index, follow.

                          Index pages are noindex, follow

                          Final pages are index, follow

                          I do something very close to this on my site.

                          Often, index pages are useless to searchers, because the index page changes so quickly that by the time the info gets into a search result, the information is no longer on that page, and the searcher will either just click away, cursing you and your site, or they will go looking through a few index pages and then curse you when they can't find what they wanted.

                          So I agree with the way you're doing that - if it is the case that the content changes quickly. If the index pages are just collectors of groups of items, then index, follow would be better, provided that you have enough text on the page to make it worthwhile.

                          As to how to make that happen, it isn't obvious.

                          I need to upgrade some of my sites to 3.5.

                          It could be that you have a plugin or a "custom field" that sets the index follow.

                          I suggest you edit a post and a page and scroll down to see if you have a field that handles it, such as "robotsmeta" that is set to "noindex,follow" for those pages

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • markgreggs
                            markgreggs @loopyal last edited by

                            Hi Alan, thanks for your quick response.

                            My website is: www.FifaCoinStore.com

                            Here is a printscreen of my settings: http://gyazo.com/0cd3d21c5ec1797873a5c7cacc85a588.png?1357600674

                            I believe since the WordPress 3.5 update they have removed this privacy option which is why i can't seem to find it. I read this page from WordPress on it: http://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_Reading_Screen

                            Or am i just looking in the wrong place?

                            Thanks again

                            loopyal markgreggs evolvingSEO 9 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • loopyal
                              loopyal last edited by

                              Hello Mark.

                              Please send me a bitly shortened link to your website so I can see what you are seeing

                              It probably isn't your robots file.

                              First try this.

                              In the Admin section, you should see "Settings" on the left navigation

                              Click that and you should see "Privacy"

                              Click that and you should see two radio buttons

                              <label for="blog-public">I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers</label>

                              <label for="blog-norobots">I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors</label>

                              Obviously, choose the top one and save it.

                              Then, refresh your front page or inner pages and look in the code to see if it still says noindex

                              If you have a cache, you will need to flush it.

                              markgreggs 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • 1 / 1
                              • First post
                                Last post

                              Got a burning SEO question?

                              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                              Start my free trial


                              Browse Questions

                              Explore more categories

                              • Moz Tools

                                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                              • SEO Tactics

                                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                              • Community

                                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                              • Digital Marketing

                                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                              • Research & Trends

                                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                              • Support

                                Connect on product support and feature requests.

                              • See all categories

                              Related Questions

                              • RebekahVP

                                Should search pages be indexed?

                                Hey guys, I've always believed that search pages should be no-indexed but now I'm wondering if there is an argument to index them? Appreciate any thoughts!

                                Technical SEO | | RebekahVP
                                0
                              • d.bird

                                Google has deindexed a page it thinks is set to 'noindex', but is in fact still set to 'index'

                                A page on our WordPress powered website has had an error message thrown up in GSC to say it is included in the sitemap but set to 'noindex'. The page has also been removed from Google's search results. Page is https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/bad-credit-mortgages/how-to-get-a-mortgage-with-bad-credit/ Looking at the page code, plus using Screaming Frog and Ahrefs crawlers, the page is very clearly still set to 'index'. The SEO plugin we use has not been changed to 'noindex' the page. I have asked for it to be reindexed via GSC but I'm concerned why Google thinks this page was asked to be noindexed. Can anyone help with this one? Has anyone seen this before, been hit with this recently, got any advice...?

                                Technical SEO | | d.bird
                                0
                              • conversal

                                Indexed, but not shown in search result

                                Hi all We face this problem for www.residentiebosrand.be, which is well programmed, added to Google Search Console and indexed. Web pages are shown in Google for site:www.residentiebosrand.be. Website has been online for 7 weeks, but still no search results. Could you guys look at the update below? Thanks!

                                Technical SEO | | conversal
                                0
                              • TNZ

                                Google not Indexing images on CDN.

                                My URL is: https://bit.ly/2hWAApQ We have set up a CDN on our own domain: https://bit.ly/2KspW3C We have a main xml sitemap: https://bit.ly/2rd2jEb and https://bit.ly/2JMu7GB is one the sub sitemaps with images listed within. The image sitemap uses the CDN URLs. We verified the CDN subdomain in GWT. The robots.txt does not restrict any of the photos: https://bit.ly/2FAWJjk. Yet, GWT still reports none of our images on the CDN are indexed. I ve followed all the steps and still none of the images are being indexed. My problem seems similar to this ticket https://bit.ly/2FzUnBl but however different because we don't have a separate image sitemap but instead have listed image urls within the sitemaps itself. Can anyone help please? I will promptly respond to any queries. Thanks
                                Deepinder

                                Technical SEO | | TNZ
                                0
                              • mshowells

                                Fake Links indexing in google

                                Hello everyone, I have an interesting situation occurring here, and hoping maybe someone here has seen something of this nature or be able to offer some sort of advice. So, we recently installed a wordpress to a subdomain for our business and have been blogging through it. We added the google webmaster tools meta tag and I've noticed an increase in 404 links. I brought this up to or server admin, and he verified that there were a lot of ip's pinging our server looking for these links that don't exist. We've combed through our server files and nothing seems to be compromised. Today, we noticed that when you do site:ourdomain.com into google the subdomain with wordpress shows hundreds of these fake links, that when you visit them, return a 404 page. Just curious if anyone has seen anything like this, what it may be, how we can stop it, could it negatively impact us in anyway? Should we even worry about it? Here's the link to the google results. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amshowells.com&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i58.1905j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8 (odd links show up on pages 2-3+)

                                Technical SEO | | mshowells
                                0
                              • IrvCo_Interactive

                                Question on noscript tags and indexing

                                If I have a <noscript>tag on every page of my website with the same sentence over and over saying something to the effect of "Sorry our site uses Javascript, please enable javascript for the full site experience.", Webmaster Tools will tell me that one of the most common words on my site is "Javascript".</p> <p>Is this something to be concerned about from an SEO perspective? My site is obviously not about Javascript and I don't want to dilute my page's topic or authority by repeating words that are not relevant to the topic of my site.</p> <p>Thanks!</p></noscript>

                                Technical SEO | | IrvCo_Interactive
                                0
                              • NetPicks

                                How do I redirect index.html to the root / ?

                                The site I've inherited had operated on index.html at one point, and now uses index.php for the home page, which goes to the / page. The index.html was lost in migrating server hosts. How do I redirect the index.html to the / page? I've tried different options that keep giving ending up with the same 404 error. I tried a redirect from index.html to index.php which ended in an infinite loop. Because the index.html no longer exists in the root, should I created it and then add a redirect to it? Can I avoid this by editing the .htaccess? Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

                                Technical SEO | | NetPicks
                                0
                              • PlusPort

                                Changing CMS, are there SEO effects?

                                We want to change our cms from typo3  to CMS made Simple. We have done this already for another site and it effected the rankings. Have you got experience with this? What factors are important for SEO to consider? Is it normal when you change from cms the rankings will drop?

                                Technical SEO | | PlusPort
                                0

                              Get started with Moz Pro!

                              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                              Start my free trial
                              Products
                              • Moz Pro
                              • Moz Local
                              • Moz API
                              • Moz Data
                              • STAT
                              • Product Updates
                              Moz Solutions
                              • SMB Solutions
                              • Agency Solutions
                              • Enterprise Solutions
                              Free SEO Tools
                              • Domain Authority Checker
                              • Link Explorer
                              • Keyword Explorer
                              • Competitive Research
                              • Brand Authority Checker
                              • Local Citation Checker
                              • MozBar Extension
                              • MozCast
                              Resources
                              • Blog
                              • SEO Learning Center
                              • Help Hub
                              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                              • How-to Guides
                              • Moz Academy
                              • API Docs
                              About Moz
                              • About
                              • Team
                              • Careers
                              • Contact
                              Why Moz
                              • Case Studies
                              • Testimonials
                              Get Involved
                              • Become an Affiliate
                              • MozCon
                              • Webinars
                              • Practical Marketer Series
                              • MozPod
                              Connect with us

                              Contact the Help team

                              Join our newsletter
                              Moz logo
                              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                              • Accessibility
                              • Terms of Use
                              • Privacy

                              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.