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When Should You No Index Blog Posts?

ByNina Clapperton Updated on

No indexing or de indexing blog posts is kind of like an invisibility cloak for your blog. You get to put it over whichever posts you want so Google will ignore them.

But when should we use this super power? (Because the impact can feel superhuman!)

There are a number of different times when you might need/want to no index a post, or to delete them. I’ll help break down each scenario and what you should do for SEO.

But overall: you should no index a blog post when it’s not ranking on Google after 6+ months, but is still relevant to your audience.

Now let’s get into some specific scenarios, and whether or not you should no index the post in that case.

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1. Blog Posts That Don’t Rank But Get Traffic

Google isn’t the only way to get traffic to your blog. There’s social media, referral, newsletter, and even direct traffic.

If your blog post is getting traffic from other sources, especially if it’s over 100 pageviews/month, it’s worth keeping.

However, Google grades your site as a whole. Any post that doesn’t rank drags your site down. We don’t want that, but we also don’t want to lose the post.

So we should no index it. That way Google can’t see the post, but social media/direct/newsletter traffic can still reach it.

You can even publish posts for social media that you intend to no index because it won’t work on Google.

I no index my posts with Rank Math. You can do this on the sidebar in the editor area of your post here:

Screenshot of WordPress editor with the Rank Math plugin area to edit whether a post is indexed or no indexed.
The default will look like this. Simply untick the “Index” and tick the “No Index” beside it.

2. Blog Posts That Don’t Rank But Are Valuable to Your Audience/Niche

Beginners or people in heavily saturated niches can struggle with writing content that Google likes but also that’s valuable for their audience.

For example, for She Knows SEO I could write a post on “what is SEO”.

That’s never going to rank on Google with my DA of 22. It would need a lot of backlinks to compete with the top 10 for that keyword.

BUT it’s super valuable to my audience, so it’s worth having on the blog for my audience.

For posts that won’t rank (even just for a limited time, like 1+ years), it’s worthwhile to have them for your audience but you should no index them so Google doesn’t penalize your whole site.

3. Blog Posts You Would Otherwise Delete But They Have Great Backlinks

We often work hard to build backlinks to the posts that are hardest to rank for. And sometimes it doesn’t pay off for a top 10, or even top 50 ranking for a post.

While that post might be dragging our site down on Google, if they have amazing backlinks it’s not good to delete it.

My first step would be reaching out to the site(s) who linked to your site to see if they can change the link. This works well for guest posts and collab posts, but not for interviews in magazines or newspaper links.

Now, most of those links will be to your homepage so you should be ok with removing posts. But occasionally you can score some amazing backlinks to specific posts and you can’t change the link.

Keep the post, but no index it in that case.

4. Blog Posts That Aren’t Ranking And You Have No Time to Update

No indexing a post doesn’t have to be forever. In fact, I do it regularly if I know I’m short on time.

When you run a content audit, especially on a massive site, it can be overwhelming to try to update every post in a limited time.

My first content audit had over 180 posts I had to go through. I deleted 30 and no indexed 50 (or maybe the reverse? It’s been a couple years). So I only had to actually update/rewrite 100 posts.

Some of those 30 could have been salvaged if I had time, but I was one lady working multiple jobs, and had no money to hire anyone.

(I was only able to do 100 posts because of an AI writer.)

I recommend setting a time limit for your content audits if you’re doing them on your own. If you can’t update the posts within that period, no index them until you have time.

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5. Non-Informational Pages for Other Purposes

Many blogs have pages that aren’t meant for SEO. For example, I have “Thank You” pages for people who sign up to my email list or for my courses so I can track conversions with G4.

Those pages are duplicate content often since the URL is the only difference, and they have 0 SEO value.

I no index them so they don’t drag down the rest of my site.

This also goes for password protected pages or membership site pages hosted on your site. If the user can’t access the content from Google or shouldn’t be able to, no index it.

6. Blog Post Not Ranking and Not Worth Updating

If a blog post isn’t ranking well and the ROI for updating it won’t be worth it, no index it.

For example if I wrote “what is a travel blog post that makes $100 a month” for this site, it may only have a search volume of 50 per month. If I know it’ll take me hours to update and won’t really make me the money back on ads or affiliates, I will no index it rather than updating it.

This kind of relates back to #4. I’d put this on my “to update” list, but the ROI means it’ll be lower on the list. And I may run out of time.

Now, sometimes these posts are also fine as is for social media. Perhaps the order just isn’t quite right for SEO, or the competitors added 1,000 words of tangential fluff you don’t have time to do.

I’m not saying the post isn’t ok as is, but it’s not exactly worth the full effort of redoing. Then, no index it. Either you’ll update it later, or you may delete it in future updates when the content gets too out of date.

7. 100% AI Written Content

Many SEOs are turning to 100% AI content for social media traffic from places like Facebook and Pinterest (I know, I know, it’s a search engine, but I treat them the same – as in I don’t do them).

These platforms don’t care if you link to a post that’s AI generated. They care about what you post on their platforms.

Many people are using one-click AI writers like Koala to generate this content, often with no edits. Then they share it around on these platforms and get traffic.

But Google will penalize you for this content – when they figure out it’s thin, AI-generated fluff. And even if they don’t, if you don’t edit it, it’s often not very good content which won’t rank anyway.

No index this so it doesn’t hurt your average rankings with Google.

8. Blog Posts You Aren’t Ready to Delete Yet

So many people struggle to delete blog posts. It’s especially hard during your first content audit when you think back to how many hours you spent writing it.

Here’s the thing: Google doesn’t care how long it took you to write a post.

You need to be brutal with deleting posts. But it can be difficult.

No indexing a post during a content audit is a great way to slowly start working on this. You may not delete it until your next content audit – and by then you’ll just want to offload anything to make it easier to quickly get through the hundreds of posts on your site.

Some posts we aren’t emotionally prepared to remove even if they aren’t super relevant to our audience. I have some posts on my travel blog that I keep no indexed because they mean a lot to my grandma. Or because they mean a lot to me since it was emotional to write them.

I don’t really care if no one reads them. And since they aren’t hurting me with Google, I’ll keep them up and no indexed.

9. Duplicate or Cannibalized Blog Posts

Any post/page that is exactly the same as another or more than 50% the same should be no indexed.

This is why I no index my tag pages but not my categories, since they’re often basically the same and would look the same to Google.

This also goes for duplicate posts, if you have them on your site for some reason. Or if you had two posts targeting the same keyword by accident over the years (although I’d probably delete the duplicate).

Blog Posts / Pages That Don’t Rank But Should Be Indexed

Not every blog post/page needs to be no indexed, even if it doesn’t rank.

We need blog posts to fill our topic silos to build topical authority. Some of the pages involved in that, like categories and silo pages, aren’t really rankable. However, we need Google to see them to understand the connections between our content.

About, Contact, and Privacy Policy pages also need to be indexed for Google to understand who we are and that our blog is as real business.

Your author archive page should also be indexed so Google can see the specific details of each author on your site. If you redirect this to your about page, then you can skip this one.

Not every blog post on your site will rank in the top 10. It’s impossible for every single piece you write to be a hit. Sometimes that’s ok because they still get great traffic in position 20.

It’s also ok if those posts are the beginnings of a topic silo, or if you haven’t started building backlinks to those specific posts yet.

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When to Delete a Blog Post

No indexing a blog post is the best option when a post serves your audience, but doesn’t work for SEO.

Deleting a blog post is the best option when a blog post isn’t helpful to your audience and can’t be made to be helpful with edits. Or the edits aren’t worth the effort.

To Google, deleting and no indexing a blog post are kind of the same thing. It pulls the invisibility cloak over Google’s eyes, so Google has no idea the post exists. Basically, it’ll think you deleted it (except it doesn’t end up at a 404 page).

But keeping too many posts on your site is confusing to your user and slows down your WordPress database with your blog host.

Delete any blog posts that aren’t relevant to your niche, don’t get traffic from any source, and aren’t worth the effort of updating.

Need more help auditing your content? It’s time to join the Profitable Part-Time Blogger! I teach you my exact methods for running a content audit, including how to no index and delete content to grow your traffic and authority.

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Nina Clapperton is the founder of She Knows SEO.

She started blogging in 2018 and spent years doing everything “right” while earning $0. Then she stopped guessing and learned how search actually works. She rebuilt her travel site around audience intent and structure and grew to 50,000 sessions in 6 months. Within a year, the blog was bringing in $30,000 months and later crossed 243,000 pageviews.

She took the same audience first SEO approach and built her education business into multiple $100,000 months.

Now Nina teaches bloggers and online business owners how to build search powered businesses grounded in strong positioning, clear structure, and monetisation that actually supports their audience. She covers traditional SEO and AI driven search without the tech bro noise, and she’s known for explaining complex strategy with analogies you won’t forget.

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