Google’s John Mueller clarified the longstanding confusion about whether it’s appropriate to use a noindex rule and a canonical tag on the same page. A 2021 statement suggested that using both might ‘maybe’ work, but his latest statement provides a more detailed and definitive answer.
Noindex Rule And Rel=Canonical
An HTML element is like a building block of a web page. An attribute (like rel=canonical) is something that modifies the element with additional information.
Google’s documentation states:
“rel=”canonical” link annotations: A strong signal that the specified URL should become canonical.”
Here is how the noindex and canonical are supposed to work:
The noindex rule is a directive that Google must obey.
The rel=canonical is a “strong signal” that can be ignored.
The conundrum is that the noindex seemingly cancels out the canonical because in theory Google won’t see it. So if Google can’t see the canonical then why did John Mueller previously say in a 2021 video that it’s okay to use both?
What Mueller Said In 2021
The person asking the question cited an SEO Office Hours Hangout YouTube video from 2021 where Mueller had recommended using either the canonical or the noindex rule, explaining the differences. But then later he hedged and said that both noindex and canonical can be used at the same time but qualifying that statement by saying that “maybe” Google might forward the canonical signal, thereby keeping a page out of the index while also canonicalizing the preferred web page.
This is the part of the 2021 video of Mueller that the person asking the question referred to:
“…you can also do both of them.
And it’s something… if external links, for example, are pointing at this page then having both of them there kind of helps us to figure out well, you don’t want this page indexed but you also specified another one.
So maybe some of the signals we can just forward along.”
Screenshot Of 2021 SEO Office Hours Hangout Video
As you can see above, John Mueller qualified his statement with a “maybe” which implies that it’s not an absolute black and white statement but rather a statement that’s colored with shades of gray. Mueller didn’t explain why he used the word “maybe” when he answered but it’s a nuance that’s worth noting.
Is It Okay To Use Noindex & Canonical Tag?
This is the question that was asked on Reddit:
“Hi u/johnmu I was watching this …where you advise using noindex and canonical tags at the same time.
Can you please confirm if this is still valid and in case noindexed page has canonical tag you will forward backlink signals to the canonical version?