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SEO Madmanby Adam Hafez
Free tool

Meta robots tag builder

Build a syntactically correct robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header, with Google-specific directives flagged and contradictions caught.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is uploaded, logged or stored.

Directives

Output

Key takeaways
  • max-snippet, max-image-preview and max-video-preview only affect how Google renders a snippet, so combining them with noindex has no effect.
  • Google Search no longer honors noarchive, though the directive is still emitted by tools and may be read by other crawlers.
  • The same directive string is valid inside a meta tag and inside an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header, which is why this tool generates both from one input.
  • A robots meta tag only works on a page Google is allowed to crawl; blocking the page in robots.txt hides the tag from the crawler entirely.
What it takes
  • Directive checkboxes (noindex, nofollow, none, noarchive, nosnippet, notranslate, noimageindex)
  • unavailable_after date
  • max-snippet character count
  • max-image-preview size
  • max-video-preview seconds
  • Output format (meta tag or HTTP header)
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How to use it
  1. 1Pick the directivesCheck every directive that should apply. Selecting none supersedes noindex and nofollow, since it already means both.
  2. 2Set the parameterized valuesunavailable_after needs a date; max-snippet and max-video-preview take a number, where -1 means no limit; max-image-preview takes a size.
  3. 3Read the warning if one appearsThe tool flags a noindex combined with a snippet-appearance directive, since a page that is not indexed has no snippet to control.
  4. 4Choose meta tag or HTTP headerUse the meta tag in the page's head for HTML pages, or the header form when robots directives need to apply to a non-HTML file like a PDF.
  5. 5Copy the outputPaste the meta tag into the head, or add the header line in your server or CDN config for the matching path.
A robots meta tag and an X-Robots-Tag header carry the same directive string; the only
difference is where it lives. A meta tag sits in a page’s <head>, so it only works on HTML
that Google can parse. A header applies to any response, HTML or not, which is why it is the
only option for controlling indexing on a PDF, image or other file Google fetches directly.


Directives Google treats specially


Most directives here (noindex, nofollow, none, nosnippet, notranslate, noimageindex,
unavailable_after) come from the original robots meta convention and are the ones most
crawlers recognize. Three are Google-specific: max-snippet, max-image-preview and
max-video-preview only change how Google renders a snippet for an indexed page, and other
search engines are not obliged to honor them. noarchive sits on the opposite side of that
line: it used to be part of the same convention, but Google Search has retired it, so setting
it no longer changes anything in Google’s results even though the directive still exists.


Why the warning fires


max-snippet, max-image-preview and max-video-preview describe how much of a page’s content
appears inside its own snippet. That question only makes sense for a page that is indexed at
all. Combine any of them with noindex, or with the none shorthand, and the directive is not
wrong, just inert: the page will not have a snippet for those settings to shape. The tool
surfaces this as a warning rather than blocking the combination, since a page mid-edit
legitimately passes through states like this.


Treat the generated tag as the instruction you are giving the crawler, not a guarantee: a page
must also be reachable and not disallowed in robots.txt for Google to read the tag in the
first place.
Sources
  1. 1.Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications - Google Search CentralPrimary
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