Noindex, nofollow and canonical URLs

Not every page on a site should appear in search: thank-you pages, thin archives and internal search results add noise. And some pages exist in more than one version, so search engines need to know which one is the main copy. RankKit SEO handles both with the robots meta tag and the canonical link, using sensible defaults you can override site-wide or per page.

What RankKit SEO outputs by default

Page	Robots	Canonical
Published posts, pages and products	index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1	The page's own URL
Home page	Indexable	Your home URL
Category, tag and other term archives	Indexable, except Tags and Formats (noindex)	The archive URL; on page 2 and later, that page's URL
Author archives	noindex (setting on by default)	The author archive URL
Date archives	noindex (setting on by default)	–
Search results	noindex (setting on by default)	–
404 page	Always noindex	–
Drafts, private and scheduled posts	Always noindex	–

The max-snippet, max-image-preview and max-video-preview values tell Google it may show full-length snippets and large image previews. Noindex pages get noindex, follow, so search engines still follow their links unless you also set nofollow. When a page is noindex, RankKit SEO leaves out the canonical tag, since there is no indexed version to point to.

Override the robots meta for a single post

In the block editor, the Robots Meta Override card sets the robots tag of one post:

1. Click the RankKit SEO button in the editor toolbar to open the RankKit SEO panel, then choose Advanced (Edit SEO in the block editor).
2. Turn on the Robots Meta Override toggle.
3. Tick the directives you want for this post.
4. Save the post.

Checkbox	What it does
No index	Hide this page from search engines.
No follow	Do not follow the links on this page.
No archive	Do not show a cached copy.
No snippet	Do not show a text snippet or video preview.
No image index	Do not index images on this page.

When the override is off, the card says "Using the defaults: index, follow, with large image previews." and the post follows the site-wide and content type settings. Turning the override off clears all five checkboxes.

With No index ticked, the General section shows "This page is hidden from search engines (noindex). Change it under Advanced." and the page is dropped from your XML sitemap.

In the Classic Editor and Elementor, the Advanced tab has Hide from search engines (noindex) and Do not follow links (nofollow) switches instead (SEO in the Classic Editor).

Note To leave a post out of your site's own search results or archive pages without affecting search engines, use Hide from this site's search results or Hide from archive pages. See Advanced post settings.

For a category or tag, open the term's edit screen and tick Hide this archive from search engines (SEO for categories, tags and taxonomies).

Noindex a whole content type or taxonomy

• Content types: RankKit SEO → Settings → Content types, turn on Hide from search (noindex) on the content type's card. Posts of that type show "This whole content type is set to noindex in RankKit SEO settings." in the editor.
• Taxonomies: in the Taxonomies card on the same page, turn on Noindex for the taxonomy.
• Archives: RankKit SEO → Settings → General → Archives & thin pages has Noindex author archives, Noindex date archives, Noindex search results and Noindex page 2+ of archives. See Set up titles and meta descriptions.

A page is noindex if any of these apply. Leaving the post's own override off does not undo a content type set to noindex; in that case the Robots Meta Override card shows "This whole content type is set to noindex in RankKit SEO settings."

Nofollow

No follow in the Robots Meta Override (or Do not follow links (nofollow) in the Classic Editor) adds nofollow to the page's robots tag. Search engines then don't follow any link on that page. Use it rarely, for example on a page full of user-submitted or paid links.

To add rel="nofollow" to individual external links instead, use External link rules.

Canonical URLs

By default each page's canonical is its own URL. Set a different one when the same content exists at more than one address, for example a post republished from another site, or two near-identical product pages.

1. Open the post, click the RankKit SEO button in the editor toolbar and choose Advanced.
2. Enter the main version's full address in Canonical URL. The placeholder shows the post's own URL.
3. Save the post.

Leave the field empty to use the page's own URL. Paginated archives get a canonical for each page (for example /category/news/page/2/), so each page of the archive can be indexed on its own.

Important A canonical pointing to another page asks search engines to index that page instead of this one. Don't set it to an unrelated page, and don't combine it with noindex.

Check what a page outputs

Open the page on your site, view the source and look for:

<meta name='robots' content='index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1' />
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/your-page/" />

FAQ

Is noindex the same as blocking a page in robots.txt?

No. Noindex lets search engines crawl the page but asks them not to show it. Blocking in robots.txt stops crawling, so search engines may never see the noindex tag. To remove a page from search, use noindex and leave it crawlable. See Edit robots.txt.

My whole site disappeared from Google. What happened?

Check Settings → Reading in WordPress: if "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is ticked, every page is noindex. The RankKit SEO Dashboard warns "Search engines are blocked on this site" with a Fix button.

Do imported noindex and canonical settings carry over?

Yes. The importer copies noindex, nofollow and canonical fields from the supported SEO plugins. See Switch from another SEO plugin.