Build the exact <meta name="robots"> tag and the matching X-Robots-Tag HTTP header — with Apache and Nginx snippets — in one click.
<head></head> section. Only works on HTML pages.Three different tools that control three different things — mixing them up is the most common indexing mistake.
| Mechanism | Controls | Where it lives | Works on |
|---|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Whether a crawler may request a URL at all | /robots.txt at your site root | Entire site / path patterns |
| Meta robots tag | Whether a fetched page is indexed & whether its links are followed | <head> of the HTML page | HTML pages only |
| X-Robots-Tag | Same as meta robots, same directives | HTTP response header, set server-side | Any file type (PDF, images, HTML) |
If robots.txt blocks a page, crawlers may never see its meta robots tag — the two need to work together. Already have a robots.txt file? Test and validate it here →
Most generators only output one format. This one gives you every format you'll actually need to ship.
| Feature | SEOTriggers | Typical generators |
|---|---|---|
| Meta robots tag output | ✓ | ✓ |
| X-Robots-Tag HTTP header output | ✓ | Rare |
| Ready-to-paste Apache (.htaccess) snippet | ✓ | ✗ |
| Ready-to-paste Nginx snippet | ✓ | ✗ |
| Per-bot targeting (googlebot / bingbot) | ✓ | Rare |
| Plain-English search-visibility preview | ✓ | ✗ |
| Cross-linked robots.txt tester | ✓ | ✗ |
index/noindex, follow/nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, max-snippet, max-image-preview, max-video-preview, notranslate, noimageindex, unavailable_after, indexifembedded.
Get the HTML meta tag and the equivalent X-Robots-Tag header from the same settings — no need for two separate tools.
Copy-ready Apache and Nginx snippets so you can noindex PDFs, images, and downloads that can't carry a meta tag.
Generate separate rules for all robots, Googlebot only, or Bingbot only — in the same output.
See exactly what your settings mean in plain English before you ship them.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is ever uploaded or stored.
A meta robots tag is an HTML tag placed in a page's <head> section that tells search engines whether to index the page and whether to follow its links. Unlike robots.txt, which controls crawling, meta robots controls what happens after a page has been crawled.
They use the exact same directives and have identical effect, but meta robots is an HTML tag placed inside <head> and only works on HTML pages, while X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header set at the server level and also works on non-HTML files like PDFs, images, and downloads.
No. Robots.txt controls whether a crawler is allowed to request a page at all. Meta robots and X-Robots-Tag control what the crawler does after it has successfully fetched the page. If robots.txt blocks a page, crawlers may never even see its meta robots tag.
PDFs and images don't have an HTML <head>, so a meta robots tag won't work on them. Use the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header instead, set at the server level via Apache (.htaccess) or Nginx configuration — this tool generates both automatically.
"none" is shorthand for "noindex, nofollow" together — it tells search engines not to index the page and not to follow any of its links. This tool generates the explicit "noindex, nofollow" form, which has identical effect and is easier to read.
No — a crawler has to re-fetch the page to see a new or updated meta robots tag. For popular pages this typically happens within days; for low-traffic pages it can take weeks. Requesting indexing via Search Console's URL Inspection tool can speed this up.