What SEO Geeks Argue About

Feb 13, 2012 - 8:59 am 21 by

SEO Geeks ArgueThis morning, I spotted a group of SEOs arguing about if a URL can be "indexed" if the page is blocked by a noindex tag or robots.txt file?

It is a valid SEO question but when you ask that in a room of SEO geeks, the responses can get pretty wild.

You've all seen examples of URLs in the search results that just list the URL but not the actual title tag and snippet of the page. That is typically because Google has a copy of the URL in their database as a reference but has not crawled or indexed the content on the web page because it is restricted to do so for one reason or another.

The question is, is that URL considered indexed or not? That depends on the definition of "indexed" and which SEO you ask.

Let me share the tweets about this:

The discussion went on for dozens and dozens of tweets with no one winning.

Matt or John, want to chime in and give the final answer?

Forum discussion at, um, Twitter.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 11, 2025

Jul 11, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Helpful Content Recoveries With Core Update, AI Mode Expands, Hidden Ad Terms & Fewer Ad Clicks

Jul 11, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google Maps

Google Local & Business Profiles Drops June 25th - Reporting Glitch?

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Tests Zoom Effect In On Images Within Search Results

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Search Image Box Tests Explore Image & Visual Search Buttons

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:31 am
Bing Search

Microsoft Bing Tests Delivery Truck Icon In Search Ads

Jul 11, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Will Socially Awkward Sites Suffer In Google In The Long Run?