Robots Meta Tag Generator

Free robots meta tag generator. Build a valid robots meta tag with noindex, nofollow, max-snippet and other directives, with a plain-English explanation and copy.

✓ Free ⚡ Instant 🔒 100% private
Choose directives

Indexing

Link following

Extra directives

Preview limits

Bot targeting

Your meta tag

🔒 Everything is built in your browser — nothing is uploaded to any server.

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Free Robots Meta Tag Generator

This free robots meta generator builds a valid <meta name="robots"> tag from simple toggles. Turn indexing on or off, control whether links are followed, and add advanced directives like noarchive, nosnippet, max-snippet and max-image-preview — then copy the ready tag into your page’s <head>. It’s free, instant and runs entirely in your browser.

How to use the robots meta generator

  1. Pick your indexing ruleindex to allow the page in search, or noindex to hide it.
  2. Choose link followingfollow or nofollow for the links on the page.
  3. Add extra directives with the checkboxes and set any preview limits or an expiry date if you need them.
  4. Tick googlebot-specific tag if you want a second tag aimed only at Google.
  5. Read the plain-English summary, then click Copy meta tag and paste it inside your <head>.

What does the robots meta tag do?

The robots meta tag is a small instruction in your page’s HTML <head> that tells search engines how to treat that specific page. The two most important values are noindex and nofollow. noindex asks search engines to keep the page out of their results, while nofollow tells them not to follow or pass ranking signals through the links on the page. They are independent, so you can mix them — for example noindex, follow hides a page but still lets the crawler discover the pages it links to.

The robots meta tag is different from robots.txt. A robots.txt file blocks crawling of whole sections of a site, but a blocked page can still get indexed if other sites link to it. To reliably keep a page out of search you use a noindex meta tag and let the crawler reach the page — if you block it in robots.txt the crawler may never see the noindex instruction.

The newer directives give finer control over how a result looks. max-snippet:N limits the description text to N characters (-1 means no limit, 0 means no snippet at all), and max-image-preview:(none|standard|large) controls the size of any image thumbnail. There is also max-video-preview:N for video previews and unavailable_after to drop a page from results on a set date. This generator only ever outputs non-contradictory combinations, so you will never get index and noindex in the same tag.

Frequently asked questions

Is this robots meta generator free and private?
Yes. It is completely free with no sign-up, and the tag is built in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing you select is ever uploaded to a server.
What is the difference between noindex and nofollow?
noindex asks search engines to keep the page out of their results, while nofollow tells them not to follow or pass ranking signals through the links on that page. They are independent, so a tag like noindex, follow is perfectly valid.
Should I use the robots meta tag or robots.txt?
Use robots.txt to control crawling of whole sections, and the robots meta tag to control indexing of individual pages. To reliably hide a page from search, use a noindex meta tag and do not block the page in robots.txt, otherwise the crawler may never see the noindex instruction.
What do max-snippet and max-image-preview do?
max-snippet limits how many characters of description text can appear in a result, where -1 means no limit and 0 means no snippet. max-image-preview sets the largest image thumbnail allowed, choosing between none, standard and large.
Where do I put the robots meta tag?
Place it inside the head section of the page HTML, before the closing head tag. It applies only to the page it sits on, so each page can have its own rules. You can also add a googlebot-specific tag to give Google different instructions from other crawlers.
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