--- name: robots-meta description: "Use when applies to all HTML pages. Use when auditing pages that have disappeared from search results or when checking staging vs. production meta tag parity." metadata: category: seo priority: high difficulty: beginner estimatedTime: "10" source: frontendchecklist.io url: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/robots-meta --- # Set robots meta directives correctly An accidental `noindex` on a key landing page silently removes it from search results; audit every page's robots directive to avoid invisible ranking losses. ## Quick Reference - Place `` in `` to control indexing per-page - Use `noindex` only on pages that should not appear in search results - Avoid `noindex, nofollow` on pages you want crawled for PageRank flow - Crawler-specific tags (`googlebot`, `bingbot`) override the generic `robots` tag for that crawler ## Check Inspect `` for ``. Verify the content value is intentional (e.g., production pages should not have `noindex`). Check for conflicting `googlebot`-specific tags. ## Fix Remove or update the `noindex` directive from pages that should appear in search results. For pages that must be blocked, confirm `noindex` is intentional. Remove duplicate or conflicting robots meta tags. ## Explain Explain the difference between robots.txt and meta robots, when each should be used, and why `noindex` combined with `follow` still allows link equity to flow. ## Code Review Review metadata generation, rendered HTML, structured data, and response headers related to Set robots meta directives correctly. Flag exact routes or templates where search-facing output violates the rule, and describe how to verify the final page output. --- For full implementation details, code examples, and framework-specific guidance, see `references/rule.md`. Rule page: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/robots-meta