A policy page nobody wants to read was appearing in Google thousands of times a year.
Noindex tells Google not to show a page in search results. Follow tells Google it may still use the links on that page, although Google treats a page that stays noindex for a long time as nofollow too. Together they keep a page working for visitors while removing it from search.
Why it matters
Every time this page appeared in Google, it took a spot that a useful page could have had. Nobody searching was looking for a cookie policy, which is why nobody clicked.
I do not expect this change alone to move rankings. It is housekeeping that removes a result that helps nobody.
How to check your own site
- In Search Console, open Performance, then Pages, and search for privacy, terms and cookie.
- Check which of these pages are already set to noindex in your SEO plugin.
At a glance
| Status | Done |
|---|---|
| Hypothesis | Removing a policy page with impressions and no clicks from the index cleans up the results without losing anything. |
| Started | 2026-08-28 |
| Measured by | Index status of the page, and total site clicks before and after |
| Result | 23 impressions in 90 days and 7 in 28 days, to 4 October 2026, against 5,556 in the 12 months before the change. |
Zero clicks over a year is still a clear signal, but I now check when the impressions happened before treating a yearly total as today's problem.
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