Try it yourself
This page loads in under a second, reads well, and appears nowhere in Google. One line is the reason.
Which line is keeping it out of search?
- <head>
-
A clear, specific title. Nothing wrong here — and a good title is worth nothing if the page is not indexed.
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A good description. It only ever appears under a result, so it never gets the chance.
-
That is it. "noindex" asks search engines to leave this page out of results, and "nofollow" asks them not to follow its links. It is a real tool — it is how you hide a site while you build it. It is also the most common thing left switched on after launch.
-
The canonical tag names the real address of this page. Correct, and unrelated.
- </head>
Pick a line. Every one of them has an answer.
Show me the answer
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
That is it. "noindex" asks search engines to leave this page out of results, and "nofollow" asks them not to follow its links. It is a real tool — it is how you hide a site while you build it. It is also the most common thing left switched on after launch.
The written version
Your site may be telling Google to ignore it →
How to check your own site for this, what to change, and how to confirm it worked.
Now the real thing
Run this check on your own site.
The same check, plus twenty-nine others, against your actual pages. Free, no account, about a minute.