Debugging a Stale noindex Verdict in Google Search Console
A site migration can leave Google Search Console reporting a noindex tag even after the page loads normally. The article advises checking when Google last fetched the URL and comparing that with the response the public server returns today. A noindex directive may appear in either the HTML or the HTTP headers, and an old indexing report can reflect an outdated response. To make the comparison, it provides a Python script, check_noindex.py, which sends a single GET request, stops at redirects, and prints the status, relevant headers, canonical links, and robots meta tags. The author recommends testing the exact URL readers will use, including scheme, host, and trailing slash, and notes that compressed responses must be decoded before the HTML can be inspected.
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