# Meta Robots Tag Generator The meta robots tag controls whether a page is indexed, whether its links are followed, and how it appears in results. Toggle the directives you need below and copy the tag - or the equivalent X-Robots-Tag header. ## How to use it 1. Choose index/noindex and follow/nofollow. 2. Add snippet, archive, or image limits if needed. 3. Copy the meta tag into the page's . 4. Use the X-Robots-Tag header for non-HTML files like PDFs. ## Frequently asked questions ### What's the difference between noindex and nofollow? noindex keeps a page out of search results; nofollow tells engines not to pass ranking signals through the page's links. They're independent - use either, both, or neither. ### When should I use noindex? For pages you don't want in search: thank-you pages, internal search results, thin tag archives, and duplicate utility pages. Keep them crawlable so the noindex is actually seen. ### What is the X-Robots-Tag header? It's the HTTP-header equivalent of the meta robots tag. Use it to control indexing of non-HTML files like PDFs and images, where you can't add a meta tag. ### Does noindex remove a page immediately? No - Google must recrawl the page to see the directive, which can take days. Don't also block the page in robots.txt, or the crawler will never read the noindex. ### What does max-snippet do? It limits how many characters of your page Google can show in a snippet. -1 means no limit; 0 means no snippet at all. Use the interactive tool: https://www.tryspook.com/tools/meta-robots-generator