Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’ even when url’s are marked as index, follow

Six days and no one even replied… WOW

Today GSC just marked another page with similar issue:Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’

Page source:
<meta name=’robots’ content=’index, follow, max-image-preview:large, max-snippet:-1, max-video-preview:-1′ />

Page is also behind login like 4 others with same error while there are 50+ more that are ok so far.

Hello Justaniceguy,

I am sorry to learn that some of your pages are marked as noindex though you see index, follow tag in the page source. First, can you resubmit the sitemap by following this help article – https://yoast.com/help/submit-sitemap-search-engines/?

Do let us know if the same error persists.

Thank you M.

As suggested in article, I have removed sitemap from the GSC and linked new one (even there hasn’t been any changes on my site so by logic it should be the same but let’s see).

I have also requested validation so now have to wait. I will post update here.

Few things…

1st. Why this thread is marked as resolved ? Even without a notice ? Makes me think it is done on purpose so I am not notified via mail. Moving the problems “under the carpet” won’t solve them.

2nd. It is sad too see how support handles bunch of issues since past several plugin updates (and it is not the first time happening, happened in the past after another major plugin update, can’t remember anymore which version was affected).

3rd. I was considering to purchase premium version but I am not seeing that happen anymore. I’am even considering to switch to another SEO solution.

4th. GSC finally crawled my site again only to warn me of another page that is marked with error “Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’ ” which is not correct since looking at the page source it clearly says “<meta name=’robots’ content=’index, follow, max-image-preview:large, max-snippet:-1, max-video-preview:-1′ />”

Since page is behind login I can create an account so support staff can login and check it.

5th. Please do NOT mark this thread as resolved since it is not resolved. GSC is way to slow so any changes take a lot of time to be tested and confirmed they work or not. Beside, I am not the only one who has this kind of issue.

Thank you.

ps. I am still using YOAST version 19.1 since there are so many users having issues which are not resolved in newer plugin versions.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by justaniceguy. Reason: adding more details

Hi @justaniceguy

We apologize for not being able to get back to you sooner.

We understand that some of your pages are behind a membership login, and even though the meta robots tag in the page source is ‘index’ and ‘follow’, Google Search Console is reporting it as ‘submitted URL is marked as noindex’.

Could you provide us with an example URL so we can try and investigate on this a bit further?

We also recommend trying the URL inspection tool in GSC to see if it reflects the same information in a live test.

Even though there is an ‘index’ meta robots tag, it might be possible that GSC is flagging it as such as it requires a membership log-in in order to access the content.

The index coverage report documentation might be of assistance as well – https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7440203/

If you have any issues with the latest version of Yoast SEO Free 19.6.1 that is separate from this issue, we recommend that you also open a new thread related to that specific issue so we can try and help address it as best as we can.

Thank you for reply. Honestly, I have gave up of waiting. Anyway, here is my feedback.

Example of a public URL that is indexed correctly: https://camlessons.net/cam-girl-job-help-services/

Example of a URL behind the login page that was marked as noindex by GSC on 4th. July: https://camlessons.net/course-5-premium-tips-hints/
Example of a URL behind the login page which was marked as noindex by GSC on 12th. august: https://camlessons.net/course-2-protecting-yourself/ (little below is GSC test result)
Example of a URL behind the login page which was marked as noindex by GSC on 29th. august: https://camlessons.net/no-access/
(and you would be redirected to it after clicking on trying to access as a member with limited membership level or directly by link or copy-paste within the browser)
there are more of these

Example of a URL also behind the login page which is NOT marked as noindex by GSC that is also behind login: https://camlessons.net/course-1-getting-started/
there are more of these as well

I have followed instructions from the page you have suggested. TEST result of randomly chosen page GSC marked as noindex: https://camlessons.net/course-2-protecting-yourself/

1. I have checked page source to be sure that meta robots tags are follow, index.
2. I have tested live URL
3. After test I got:
Crawl Time Sep 5, 2022, 11:24:14 AM
Crawled as Googlebot smartphone
Crawl allowed? Yes
Page fetch Successful
Indexing allowed? error
No: ‘noindex’ detected in ‘robots’ meta tag`

What confuses me the most is that GSC is constantly adding page after page to noindex ones over time. Somehow logical would be that after a site crawl (around 60 pages only) it update status of all pages at once.

By the way, I have already tried to replace sitemap.xml with fresh one and obviously that did not helped.

In general, since these pages are not public than, correct me if I am wrong, their indexing or noindexing should not affect my site ranking and/or DA / PA score. However, I prefer to have website without errors as much as possible and as i said, it is very strange to see how GSC is adding page after page to noindexed ones even all site URL’s are marked as index, follow.

I have switched to YOAST 19.6.1 on latest WP using php 7.4.30.

Also as I already said, I would be happy to create and share test account that will have access to some of these error affected pages if there is a way to share it (by mail or whatever non publicly.

Looking forward to solution. Thank you

Hey @justaniceguy,

Sorry for the late reply.

For pages that are behind a redirect or login screen, it makes no sense to try to let them be indexed, the page content won’t be seen as crawlers are following the redirect and see the login prompt. So I’d recommend not trying to get them indexed in the first place, and focusing on the pages of your site that are public and optimizing those.

Thank you for taking the time to take a look again and reply. We would not waste our precious time if (stupid) google indexing has marked links behind the login wall as non indexed at first place. Beside, it would be great if there is more precise error description for pages behind login by Google, something like “url behind login” or similar. By marking pages as noindex (probably on it’s own because they are behind login) Google is only making a confusion.

Since all the pages I wanted to be indexed are actually indexed (and optimized as best as possible) I will mark this thread as resolved (and will have to accept fact that I will have to watch non indexed pages graph within GSC going down until (stupid) engine “figure out” which url’s/pages are behind login wall and mark them all as noindex).

Thank you once again.