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DEV-IDX-05Avoid5 of 13 in IDX

Do not add nosnippet or a short max-snippet unless you accept losing snippets and AI feature use

Level
Avoid

Must not: the site is not ready to launch while it does this.

Documentation

Documented

At least one cited Google document states or supports it.

Area
IDXIndexing and snippet controls
Covered

Automatic

Decided from one URL.

Why it matters

nosnippet removes the text snippet and video preview and also stops the page's content being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode; max-snippet limits that use too. A page must be eligible for a snippet to be a supporting link in AI features, and Google said its AI answers are built from snippets. Said at Search Central Live: a value too short for a useful snippet may lead to no snippet at all.

How to meet it

Keep nosnippet and max-snippet limits off by default. To hide one detail, such as a phone number or a member price, use data-nosnippet on that element instead (DEV-IDX-07). If licensing requires limits, set them per template deliberately and record the trade-off.

How to test it

Search the codebase, CMS settings and CDN transforms for nosnippet and max-snippet; curl key templates to confirm none is present unless intended.

How Regensbot covers it

AutomaticNeedsOne URL

Decided from one URL.

An audit reads the response, the headers, the HTML, robots.txt, the sitemaps and the structured data, and the finding shows the evidence it saw.

How verdicts workWhat you connect

Sources

Google documents03

  1. 01Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specificationsGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
  2. 02AI features and your websiteGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
  3. 03Control your snippets in search resultsGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)

Claims in the knowledge base06

  1. D2-C728SourceHow does the index look like?Google's documentation
  2. D2-C072ConfirmedControlling indexingShown on screen
  3. D2-C074SourceControlling indexingGoogle's documentation
  4. D2-C070ConfirmedControlling indexingShown on screen
  5. D2-C073ConsistentControlling indexingSaid on stage
  6. D2-C084UndocumentedControlling indexingSaid on stage

Claim IDs refer to the Search Central Live 2026 knowledge base. The knowledge base (opens in a new tab)

Confirmed
Google's documentation states the same thing.
Consistent
Google's documentation supports it without stating it.
Undocumented
Said or shown at the event, not in the documentation.
Source
The claim is the cited document itself.

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