Google On When To Use Noindex Or Canonical

Google’s John Mueller was asked about if it is still okay to use noindex and canonicals at the same time and when to use one or the other. This is a topic we covered several times here over the years but I spotted a new Reddit thread with John’s comments on it, so I figured I’d resurrect this topic.

First, here is our previous coverage:

The new Reddit thread references an old office hours hangout (which I miss a lot) where at the 16:38 mark, David asks about this topic.

John replied that if you want to consolidate pages with the possibility of the pages still showing up, then go with the canonical. If you want the pages gone from Google Search, then go with noindex. He also said, technically you can go with both.

Here is what John said there:

But I think the general question of should I use noindex or rel canonical for another page is something where there probably isn’t an absolute answer. So that’s kind of just offhand. It’s like, if you’re struggling with that, you’re not the only person who’s like, oh, which one should I use? That also usually means that both of these options can be OK.

So usually what I would look at there is what your really strong preference there is.

And if the strong preference is you really don’t want this content to be shown at all in Search, then I would use no index.

If your preference is more I really want everything combined in one page, and if individual ones show up, like, whatever, but most of them should be combined, then I would use a rel canonical.

And ultimately, the effect is similar in that, well, it’s like, likely the page that you’re looking at won’t be shown in search. But with a no index, it’s definitely not shown. And with a rel canonical, it’s more likely not shown.

Sure, I mean, you can also do both of them. And it’s something– if external links, for example, are pointing at this page, then having both of them there helps us to figure out, well, you don’t want this page indexed, but you also specified another one. So maybe some of the signals we can just forward along.

Here is the video embed:

So this was brought up in the Reddit thread and the response was a bit weird but you can take a look at it.

John wrote:

I’d just pick one (noindex or followed links). Links on a noindexed page can be picked up, but it’s not guaranteed. SEO is often about making your preference very clear and not about maybe’s. Also, it’s helpful to be realistic: sometimes (often) having a good site structure that generally works well for search engines is better than hyper-focusing on links (or any other individual aspect of SEO).

Forum discussion at Reddit.