X-Robots-Tag noindex header
Pages sent with an X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header. The same as a noindex meta tag, but set by the server where nobody looks at it: the page looks normal in the browser and stays out of search.
CriticalINDEX-002 · Indexation · checked on every page
Where it usually comes from
Server or CDN rules added to keep a staging copy out of search, then carried over to production, or rules meant for PDFs and files that also catch HTML pages.
How to fix it
- Find where the header is set: the web server configuration, the CDN rules, or the application.
- Remove it for the pages that should be in search.
How to check it yourself
Look at the response headers of the page in the browser's developer tools (Network tab) and search for X-Robots-Tag.
What it looks like in a report
Critical The server sends X-Robots-Tag: noindex. · /guides/*
The pages look normal in a browser; the refusal is in the response headers, set on the server. (An example shop; the numbers are illustrative.)
How the audit counts it
INDEX-002 is a critical in the indexation category, and weighs heavily in that category’s score. When it appears on many pages built from the same template, the report shows it once, with the number of pages it covers — because one change in the template fixes all of them.
If the finding is deliberate on your site, it can be accepted as intentional in the report. It then leaves the list and the score, and comes back on its own if what it shows changes.
Other indexation checks
- meta robots noindex · INDEX-001
- Canonical missing · INDEX-003
- Canonical to another page · INDEX-004
- Relative canonical · INDEX-005
- The domain is a mirror of another domain · INDEX-006
Find it on your site
A Trakis audit runs this check and the other 65 on your site, and tells you on how many pages each one sits. Or go back to all the rules.