Why it matters
Robots rules added with JavaScript take longer to be seen, and removing a noindex with JavaScript does not work: Google may skip rendering a page that arrives with noindex, so it stays out of the index. Google's documentation recommends avoiding JavaScript to inject or change meta tags.
How to meet it
Decide indexability on the server and send the final robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header in the first response. Never ship noindex in the HTML shell and remove it after hydration, and never toggle data-nosnippet with JavaScript. The one documented exception is adding noindex with JavaScript to an error view in a client-rendered app (DEV-ERR-02).
How to test it
The robots meta tag in curl output and in URL Inspection's rendered HTML is identical on every indexable template. A search of the client bundle finds no code that writes meta[name="robots"] except error views.
How Regensbot covers it
Decided automatically once Regensbot renders your pages.
Headless Chromium renders the page on an isolated render service, and the raw and the rendered HTML run through the same parsers.
Sources
Google documents03
- 01meta tags and attributes that Google supportsGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
- 02Understand the JavaScript SEO basicsGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
- 03Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specificationsGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
Claims in the knowledge base09
- D2-C108ConsistentControlling indexingShown on screen
- D2-C106ConsistentControlling indexingShown on screen
- D2-C107SourceControlling indexingGoogle's documentation
- D2-C257SourceWhat is Google friendly JavaScriptGoogle's documentation
- D2-C109n/aControlling indexingThe author's interpretation
- D2-C079SourceControlling indexingGoogle's documentation
- D2-C852ConsistentControlling indexingSaid on stage
- D2-C853ConfirmedControlling indexingSaid on stage
- D2-C854SourceControlling indexingGoogle's documentation
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.