No Index Question

[jasonMPLS]

Hello,

We are attempting to have the following page removed from Google search results:

view-source:http://www.mndaily.com/1998/04/08/missing-student-has-disappeared

A noindex tag was added but we aren't sure if it was done correctly.  I'm wondering if there are any experts here that might be able to confirm that this was added correctly and will result in the removal of the page from search results.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

[Lumina]

I've checked the source of that page, and your tag is in the body of the page rather than the head. Specifically, the tag is on line 937 at the start of a paragraph, while your head ends at line 107. I suggest reading this article to learn a little more about the syntax of this particular tag and it's uses. It can be a little tricky, but that article should point you in the right direction.

[MattRoney]

Hi Jason,

Definitely follow Bryan's advice, and also make sure to submit your updated XML sitemap—that is, without the page you want deindexed—in Webmaster Tools once that's done. That should accelerate Google's crawling of your site, and speed up the process of getting it off the SERPS.

[rjonesx. 0]

Hi Jason,

In addition to following both Bryan's and Matt's recommendations, you can also use the Google URL Removal tool to expedite the process. Once you have correctly added the noindex tag and have set up Google Webmaster Tools (now called Google Search Console), you can use the URL Removal Tool here to tell Google to go ahead and delete the URL from their index.