Free Meta Robots Tag Generator
This free meta robots tag generator turns plain options such as index or noindex, follow or nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet and max-snippet into a correct meta tag you can paste in your page head, plus the matching X-Robots-Tag header for files and servers. It warns about combinations that cancel each other out, and it suits SEOs and site owners controlling what search engines show.
Meta Robots Tag Generator
On-page SEO
About this tool
The meta robots tag tells search engines what they may do with one page. Index lets the page appear in results and noindex keeps it out. Follow lets crawlers pass through its links and nofollow asks them not to. With no tag at all, the default is index and follow, so you only need the tag when you want something different.
Other directives control how a result looks. Noarchive stops a cached copy, nosnippet removes the text snippet, max-snippet limits it to a number of characters, max-image-preview sets how large a preview image may be, and unavailable_after removes the page from results after a date. Pick the crawler name as well, because a tag named robots reaches all crawlers while googlebot or bingbot targets one.
Meta tags only work on HTML pages. For PDFs, images and other files send the same rules in an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header, which this tool also writes. Remember that a page blocked in robots.txt cannot be crawled, so a crawler never sees its noindex tag. Nothing you choose is stored.
Frequently asked questions
What is the default if I add no robots tag?
Search engines treat a page as index, follow. That means it can appear in results and its links can be followed. Add a tag only when you want to change that, for example noindex on thank-you pages, internal search results or thin tag archives.
Is noindex the same as blocking in robots.txt?
No. A robots.txt rule stops crawling, while noindex is read from the page and stops indexing. If a page is blocked in robots.txt, crawlers cannot read its noindex tag, and the address can still show in results without a description. To remove a page, allow crawling and use noindex.
What does max-snippet do?
It limits the length of the text snippet shown for the page, in characters. A value of zero means no snippet and a value of minus one lets the search engine choose. It does not change ranking. Use it when you want to limit how much of your text appears in results.
When should I use the X-Robots-Tag header instead?
For files that have no HTML head, such as PDFs, images and downloads, or when you want to set a rule for many pages at once in your server configuration. The header accepts the same directives as the meta tag.
Do all search engines follow these directives?
Google and Bing support the main ones, including index, follow, noarchive, nosnippet, max-snippet and max-image-preview. Support for the rest varies by engine, so treat the tag as a strong request rather than a guarantee, and use passwords for truly private pages.