Hello,
We apologize for the issue you are facing with the ‘noindex’ tag. It can be frustrating when you’ve followed all the necessary steps and are still encountering problems.
Since you’ve already inspected the relevant pages and confirmed that none of them have the ‘noindex’ tag, here are a few additional steps you might consider:
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Check for Plugins or Themes: Sometimes, plugins or themes can add a ‘noindex’ tag without it being visible in the page source. Review your active plugins and theme settings to ensure none of them are adding this tag inadvertently.
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Review Site Settings: Double-check your WordPress settings to ensure that the option to discourage search engines from indexing your site is not checked.
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Inspect Other Pages: If there are other pages on your site that might be affected, inspect those as well to ensure they do not have the ‘noindex’ tag.
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Clear Caches: If you are using any caching plugins, clear your cache to ensure that Google is seeing the most up-to-date version of your pages.
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Google Search Console: After making any changes, request indexing for the affected pages in Google Search Console to prompt Google to re-crawl them.
If you’ve tried all these steps and are still having issues, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will take over and assist you further.
Thank you for raising this concern! We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue.
It sounds like you’ve done your due diligence, but sometimes caching issues or conflicts with other plugins can cause persistent problems. Try clearing your site cache and checking for any conflicting plugins that might be affecting the indexing.
Hello,
Thank you for your reply.
I have cleared my cache several times.
How can I verify if there are any conflicting plugins? The page source code doesn’t show a ‘noindex’ tag, so I’m not sure how else to check.
Thank you for your help!
Hello,
Please share the affected URL/s so we can check them as well.
Also, take a screenshot of the report in your GSC where the error is showing. You can upload screenshots using this tool and add the link here.
You can add them to the sensitive data section by editing your first post
It is completely secure, and only our support staff has access to that section.
Looking forward to helping you.
Hello there,
I appreciate your help! 🙂
I sent you all that you have requested me. Please let me know if you need anything else!
Thank you once again!
Hello,
We checked the pages you shared on Google with the site: operator and can see that they have been indexed except for the www.example.com/charity/ page (replace the http://www.example.com with your website).
We can also see that some of the pages identified in the Search Console as having the noindex tag are leading to the 404 page which shows that they do not exist.
We can also see that the validation process has failed so Google may not have updated information about the status of these pages.
In this case, we suggest that revalidate the status and wait a few more times for Google to complete the validation process.
Let us know how it goes. We look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.
Hi there,
Thank you for your help!
I will revalidate once again. I believe that Google stops indexing when it encounters an error. In my case, there are many URLs that I prefer not to have indexed.
For example, it sometimes attempts to index the link inside an “add to cart” button, which results in an “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” error.
I just want to confirm with you: even if I have other errors, such as Not Found (404), Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag, or “Alternate page with proper canonical tag,” and I don’t want these pages or URLs to be indexed, can I leave those errors as they are?
In other words, will having these errors without “fixing” them harm my website’s SEO if they’re not required?
As always, thank you for everything!
Hello,
We have articles we will recommend you go through as they will guide you in taking the best actions for your site.
Excluded by NoIndex Tag: https://rankmath.com/kb/excluded-by-noindex-tag/
Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag: https://rankmath.com/kb/alternate-page-with-proper-canonical-tag/
Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Hello,
Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.
If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.
Thank you.
