How to enable and configure custom robot tags for posts and pages on Blogger

How to enable and configure custom robot tags for posts and pages on Blogger is one of those quiet SEO controls that saves you from indexing junk. Custom robots tags let you tell crawlers, per post or page, whether to index the URL, follow links, show snippets, or keep a cache. Used well, they protect drafts you accidentally published, thank-you pages, and thin label-style content. Used badly, they hide money pages from Google.

I treat robots tags as a scalpel, not a default. Most posts should stay indexable. You turn the feature on once in Settings, then set tags only where you need them. Sitewide crawl rules still live in robots.txt and your sitemap. Pair this post with how to set robots.txt and sitemap on BlogSpot so you do not fight yourself with two conflicting setups.

Turn on custom robots tags in Settings

Sign in at blogger.com and open the blog you want to configure. In the left menu click Settings. Scroll to the Crawlers and indexing section. Find Enable custom robots tags and switch it on.

Until that toggle is on, you will not see Custom robots tags inside the post editor Options panel. If the option is missing when you edit a post, come back here first.

Leaving the feature off is fine if you never need per-URL control. Turning it on does not automatically noindex anything. It only unlocks the checkboxes.

Open a post or page and find the Options panel

Go to Posts or Pages, then open an existing item or create a new one. On the right side of the editor, open Options. With the feature enabled you should see Custom robots tags. Expand it and you get the tag checkboxes.

Work on a single URL at a time. There is no bulk “noindex all drafts” button here. For a full crawl block of a path pattern you would use robots.txt instead, which is a different tool with a wider blast radius.

What each tag means in practice

all tells crawlers they may index the page and follow its links. That is the normal, open setting for public articles you want in search.

noindex asks search engines not to put the page in results. Use it for pages that must stay online for humans but should not rank: temporary notices, private-ish utility pages, or thin duplicates you cannot delete yet.

nofollow asks crawlers not to follow links on that page. I rarely need this on a normal blog post. Prefer linking carefully instead of nofollowing an entire article.

none is the same idea as combining noindex and nofollow.

noarchive asks engines not to keep a cached copy in search results. Handy if a page changes often or you do not want an old cache shown, but it is not a privacy guarantee.

nosnippet asks engines not to show a text snippet (and related preview bits, depending on the engine). Use sparingly. Snippets help click-through on real articles.

notranslate asks engines not to offer automatic translation for that page.

noimageindex asks engines not to index images on that page. Useful if the page embeds images you do not want surfacing in image search, though image SEO is its own topic.

unavailable_after lets you set a date after which the page should stop being indexed. Think limited-time pages. Double-check the date format Blogger expects in the UI before you rely on it.

After you pick tags, Publish or Update. Then wait for recrawl. You can speed a check with URL Inspection in Search Console once the HTML reflects the meta robots directives.

When I actually use these tags

I noindex pages that exist for readers but should not compete with main guides: “thanks for contacting us” style pages, temporary event notes, or old experiments I am not ready to delete. I leave cornerstone posts alone so they keep ranking.

I do not noindex every label or archive by default. Some blogs do that as policy. On a small BlogSpot niche site I would rather improve the real posts and internal links. For broader SEO and mobile habits, see how to make a BlogSpot blog SEO and mobile friendly.

If Search Console shows “Submitted URL marked noindex,” check this Options panel before you rewrite the whole theme. Accidental noindex is a common self-own after testing.

Robots tags vs robots.txt vs sitemap

Custom robots tags are per post or page. robots.txt is a site-level allow or disallow for crawlers. Your sitemap lists URLs you want discovered. Ideal setup: sitemap lists the good URLs, robots.txt does not block them, and custom tags only hide the few URLs that should stay out of the index.

Do not noindex a URL and keep pushing it hard in a sitemap without a reason. Clean the sitemap entry if the page should stay out of search for good. Do not disallow a URL in robots.txt if you need Google to see a noindex tag on it. If the crawler cannot fetch the page, it may not see the tag.

Nigeria and Blogger practical notes

On mobile data, edit one post at a time and confirm Update finished before you close the tab. Desktop site mode in the phone browser works for Settings if you need it. Keep a theme backup before you experiment with theme-level meta tags that duplicate what Blogger’s Options already offer. Prefer the built-in Custom robots tags for posts so you are not maintaining the same rule in two places.

FAQ

Will enabling the feature deindex my whole blog? No. Enabling only shows the controls. Each post stays indexable until you check noindex or none.

How long until Google respects a new noindex? After the next crawl of that URL. Request indexing or wait for natural recrawl. Watch the Pages report in Search Console.

Can I use custom tags and still rank other posts? Yes. That is the point. Hide the few URLs that should not rank, and leave the guides open.

What if I do not see Custom robots tags? Confirm Enable custom robots tags is on under Settings, Crawlers and indexing, then reopen the editor.

Enable the setting once, then set custom robot tags only on posts and pages that need special crawl rules. Keep your main articles on all (or with no restrictive boxes checked), keep robots.txt and sitemap aligned, and use Search Console to catch accidental noindex. That is how to enable and configure custom robot tags for posts and pages on Blogger without hurting the content you actually want found.