Readable and findable by Google

What we check

We look for settings that exclude the home page from Google search altogether:

• noindex: whether the home page is marked "noindex" in the robots meta tag or in the HTTP header X-Robots-Tag,
• robots.txt: whether a robots.txt exists and whether it blocks Google from the whole website,
• Canonical to a foreign domain: whether the canonical tag of the home page points to another domain,
• Snippet control: whether "nosnippet", a "max-snippet" below 50 characters or data-nosnippet on more than half of the text forbid Google to quote the page.

"noindex", a complete block and a canonical to a foreign domain are serious defects. A snippet restriction is a warning, a missing robots.txt only a note.

Why it matters

These settings are like a "Please do not enter" sign for search engines. Google obeys it, and the website disappears from the search results, however good it is otherwise.

This happens more often than you would think, and almost always unintentionally:

• During development "noindex" is set so that the half-finished page does not appear on Google. After going live, nobody remembers to remove it.
• An agency copies the robots.txt of the test environment with Disallow: / onto the real website.
• After a change of domain the canonical tag still points to the old domain.

Because the website looks normal to visitors, the mistake often goes unnoticed for weeks, until the enquiries stay away.

Snippets are the text excerpts Google shows under the title of a search result. Google uses the same excerpts for AI Overviews and AI Mode. A page with "nosnippet" appears there without a description or not at all, although it is in the index. Some SEO plugins and privacy extensions set the entry without anyone noticing.

How to fix it

Remove noindex

• WordPress: under "Settings › Reading" the option "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" must not be ticked. In Yoast SEO or Rank Math also check the settings of the home page.
• Wix, Jimdo, Squarespace: in the SEO settings of the page there is an option such as "Show page in search results". It must be switched on. With some builders the website can only be indexed after publishing or with its own domain.

Correct the robots.txt

A simple robots.txt that allows everything and points to the sitemap looks like this:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

Sitemap: https://www.example.ch/sitemap.xml

Disallow: /, by contrast, means "everything blocked".

Allow snippets

Remove nosnippet and max-snippet from the robots meta tag and the X-Robots-Tag header, or set max-snippet:-1. data-nosnippet is meant for single passages, such as prices that change often, not for whole blocks of text. In Yoast SEO and Rank Math you find the setting under "Advanced › Meta Robots".

Correct the canonical

The canonical tag of the home page must point to the site's own domain. More on this in the article on the canonical tag.

How to check it yourself

Open https://example.ch/robots.txt in the browser. Search Google for site:example.ch: if no results appear, the website is not in the index. The free Google Search Console shows for every page whether and why it is excluded.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take for my page to appear on Google again after the correction?

Usually a few days to a few weeks. It is faster if the page is inspected in Google Search Console and indexing is requested.

Do I need a robots.txt at all?

It is not mandatory, but useful: it points to the sitemap and defines which areas search engines and AI services may read. Without it the default rules apply everywhere.