"noindex" page still appears in the site's own search and in the sitemap

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What you are seeing

You have marked a page "noindex", but it still turns up in your site's own search results and in the sitemap.

#Why it happens

Noindex only asks external search engines not to list the page. It doesn't take the page out of your site's own search, the sitemap or llms.txt. The page is still published, so visitors can still find it.

Sites Pages table with a page selected and the Page Metadata panel open at More details, showing the Hide from search engines noindex checkbox
The Hide from search engines (noindex) checkbox sits under More details in the Page Metadata panel. It affects external search engines only.

#What to do

If a page must not be discoverable at all, add the capable-sites-exclude label to it in Confluence instead of using noindex. The page is left out of the site and the sitemap from your next Update.

Keep noindex for pages you're happy for visitors to find on your site, but would rather keep out of external search results.

Found it? Good.