Why it matters
The unavailable_after rule drops a page from results after a set date and time, and Googlebot considerably reduces how often it crawls the URL after that date. Index selection was described as checking the rule and dropping the page once the date is reached.
How to meet it
Add <meta name="robots" content="unavailable_after: 2026-12-31T23:59:59+01:00"> (ISO 8601, RFC 822 or RFC 850 dates) to event pages, time-limited offers and job ads when they are published. After the end date, either keep the page as an archive without the rule or return 404 or 410 if it is gone.
How to test it
curl shows the rule with a valid date; after the date, URL Inspection reports the page as not indexed.
How Regensbot covers it
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.
Sources
Google documents01
Claims in the knowledge base04
- D2-C100ConfirmedControlling indexingSaid on stage
- D2-C101SourceControlling indexingGoogle's documentation
- D2-C698ConsistentDeciding what goes in the index?Said on stage
- D2-C699n/aDeciding what goes in the index?The author's interpretation
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.
- Source
- The claim is the cited document itself.
- n/a
- Nothing to verify: a quotation, framing, opinion or analysis.