LaunchLedger workflow guide

Check rendered noindex before a website launch

A staging site may deliberately include a noindex directive. If that directive survives the launch, it deserves investigation. Checking the rendered robots meta is a useful first step, but it covers only one place where indexing instructions can exist.

A practical check

1. Confirm whether the page is supposed to be indexed. A private or account page may intentionally remain noindex.
2. Capture the rendered page and inspect its robots meta. Investigate a noindex result for a public launch page.
3. Check HTTP X-Robots-Tag headers and robots.txt separately. LaunchLedger does not retrieve them.

Example

Rendered meta: <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">
Public launch page → needs attention
HTTP indexing headers → not tested

Know the scope

Absence of noindex in a rendered meta element does not prove that a search engine can or will index the page. Access controls, server headers, crawling restrictions and other signals matter too. LaunchLedger reports the observed meta value and keeps the untested checks visible rather than declaring the site ready for search.

All guides