noindex + robots Disallow = the page stays indexed forever

noindex + robots Disallow = the page stays indexed forever

In 174 domains, 21% tried to deindex pages by adding both noindex and a robots.txt Disallow. Google can't see the noindex because it's blocked from crawling the page.

— Sites with this conflict: 21.0% ▓▓░░░░░░░░
— Median stuck-indexed URLs/site: 260
— Time stuck before noticed: 90+ days
— Removal success rate: ↓ near 0%

The failure: blocking the URL prevents Google from ever re-reading the meta tag that says 'remove me.' The page lingers as a URL-only result.

Fix: to deindex, allow the crawl and serve noindex (or 410). Only after it drops out should you Disallow. Cohort that un-blocked first cleared a median 98% of stuck URLs within 28 days.

So what: Google must read the page to obey the page.