By Shad Super in Indexing —

Indexing Win #6: Submitted URL Marked ‘noindex’ (What to Check)

If the URL is in your sitemap but noindex is present, Google is doing what you told it to. Here’s how to fix the mismatch.

“Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’” means the URL is being submitted (often via sitemap), but the page tells Google not to index it.

Where noindex usually comes from

  • Meta robots tag in the HTML template.
  • X-Robots-Tag HTTP header.
  • CMS settings (category/tag archives, search pages, staging flags).

Fix checklist

  1. Decide intent: should this page be indexed?
  2. Remove noindex from the template/header if it should be indexed.
  3. Remove the URL from sitemap if it should stay noindexed.
  4. Confirm canonical points to the right indexable URL.

Then strengthen discovery

After fixing indexability, internal links help Google prioritize crawling and indexing.

Execute internal linking quickly

Linkbot helps you add contextual internal links to pages you want indexed—without manual edits across your archive.