Noindex
Noindex is a robots instruction that tells supported search engines not to include a page in search results. A crawler must be able to fetch the instruction to process it.
SEO case study · Solar Software Company
Finding the pages Google wasn't allowed to see.
Solar Software Company sells solar design and proposal software to installers and EPCs.
- Pages gated after the fix
- 213
- down from 1,812
- URLs in sitemap
- 2,723
- up from 1,361
- Google clicks, Sep 2026
- 4,499
- vs 850 in Apr 2026
- Impressions, Sep 2026
- 396k
- vs 118,154 in Apr 2026
Client and project identities are withheld. Figures come from Google Search Console and project records. Organic leads and revenue are not disclosed.
The business
The business behind the search visibility.
Search demand splits between category terms like "solar design software" and regulatory and engineering questions installers research.
The audience is international, with strong traffic from India, South Africa, the Philippines and Italy.
The challenge
Where growth was getting constrained.
Technical
- For several weeks every page served an HTTP header telling Google not to index it.
- A content-claim gate matched one template sentence and noindexed over a thousand blog posts.
Search
- Commercial comparison and review pages switched off from indexing.
Content
- Many posts citing no external sources, and some sharing near-identical bodies.
Authority
- Category terms like "solar design software" ranking far down, around position 70.
Website
Not assessed in our records
Conversion
Not assessed in our records
The strategy
The strategy was bigger than rankings.
- 01
Unblock first
Nothing else matters if Google is told not to index the pages. Restore indexation before anything else.
- 02
Narrow, not remove, the safeguard
Keep the claim gate for genuinely risky sentences, scoped to the sentence instead of the template.
- 03
Prevent recurrence
A regression test so the same failure cannot ship again.
- 04
Then compete on category terms
An audit and implementation plan for the commercial pages and authority gap.
What we changed
What we actually built.
- Claim-gate fix
2 Sep 2026: gated pages 1,812 → 213, sitemap URLs 1,361 → 2,723, blog noindex 1,322 → 76.
- Regression test
An automated check that fails the build if the gate over-matches again.
- Noindex header removed
Resolved 17 Sep 2026.
- Consolidation redirects
Nine redirects merging competing URLs.
- Full audit + implementation plan
A 54-section audit and a task-level implementation plan.
The data
What the search data shows.
| Month | Clicks |
|---|---|
| Oct 25 | 651 |
| Nov 25 | 842 |
| Dec 25 | 788 |
| Jan 26 | 530 |
| Feb 26 | 496 |
| Mar 26 | 867 |
| Apr 26 | 850 |
| May 26 | 1,586 |
| Jun 26 | 2,553 |
| Jul 26 | 4,263 |
| Aug 26 | 4,986 |
| Sep 26 | 4,499 |
Outcome
What changed.
- Indexation was restored: the number of gated pages fell from 1,812 to 213 and the sitemap doubled.
- Monthly clicks have held around 4,000–5,000 since July 2026.
- The next frontier is clear: commercial software terms, where the site still ranks far down.
Read this alongside the numbers
- Most clicks come from regulatory and branded content, not software category terms.
- Engineering work on the site began in March 2026; earlier movements in the data are not attributed to it.
Not disclosed: Trials, demos or revenue from organic search; Backlink data.
What we learned
What this project taught us.
Check the headers, not just the HTML
The noindex was in an HTTP header that page source does not show. Only a header check revealed it.
Safeguards need tests too
A compliance gate meant to protect the site ended up hiding it. Every automated rule needs a regression test.
Count every hostname
Reporting on one hostname can miss most clicks. Sum www, apex and subdomains.
The system
Where this project sat in our method.
- Diagnose
- Architect
- Create
- Strengthen
- Convert
- Compound
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Understand the terms used in this case study.
X-Robots-Tag
The X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header that carries indexing and presentation instructions for search engines. It works outside the page's HTML and can apply to non-HTML resources.
Page indexing report
The Page indexing report is a Search Console report grouping discovered URLs by indexing status. An excluded URL can reflect either an intentional choice or a problem requiring investigation.
SEO · Content · Local · Web Design
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