A meta robots generator cheat sheet is the complete, current reference for building valid tags and X-Robots-Tag headers from the directives Google still processes today, with rules that prevent contradictory token combinations. The Meta Robots Generator is a focused tool that emits exactly this set: one validated combination of crawler scope, indexing, link-following, and snippet or preview limits, serialized as both an HTML meta element and an equivalent HTTP response header. It encodes the rules that Google's robots meta tag specifications treat as current and quietly drops the ones that have shifted to historical status, which removes the most common copy-paste errors. Everything is generated locally in the browser from a typed option list, so the syntax is exact and copy-ready without any external service. Use the cheat sheet below to pick directives, verify their limits, and deploy the output into the right channel for the resource you control.
Robots Meta Directives Google Currently Recognizes
The current Google documentation describes a fixed set of crawler-targeted directives. Each rule maps to one crawler scope (general, Google text results, or Google News) and one or more behaviors such as indexing, link-following, snippet limits, image and video previews, translation offers, image indexing, and embedded indexing with noindex. The cheat sheet groups them so you can see, at a glance, what each token does and how it is expected to behave.
| Directive | What it requests | Notes for the cheat sheet |
|---|---|---|
| all, index, follow | No restriction; the page can appear in results and links can be followed. | Default behavior; omitting tokens is equivalent. |
| noindex | Do not show this page or resource in search results. | Crawler directive only, not access control. |
| nofollow | Do not follow the links on this page. | Applies to outbound links, not to internal link equity flow. |
| nosnippet | Do not show a text snippet or video preview. | Mutually exclusive with max-snippet. |
| max-snippet | Limit textual snippet length in characters. | Accepts -1 or a non-negative integer. |
| max-image-preview | Set image preview size. | Only none, standard, and large are accepted. |
| max-video-preview | Set video preview duration in seconds. | Accepts -1 or a non-negative integer. |
| notranslate | Do not offer a translated title or snippet. | Google-specific. |
| noimageindex | Do not index images on the page. | Google-specific. |
| indexifembedded | Allow indexing when embedded despite noindex. | Requires noindex to be present in the same tag. |
Directives the Cheat Sheet Excludes and Why
A cheat sheet is only useful if it reflects what engines still read. Several familiar tokens are intentionally omitted because Google now lists them as historical, ignored, or context-dependent.
- noarchive — Google documents this rule as historical and unused. The cached-link feature that the rule once controlled no longer exists, so including a noarchive checkbox would create the false impression that a cached snapshot is being suppressed.
- unavailable_after — Although still listed in some references, correct date-time formatting, time zone handling, and editorial workflow make it the wrong fit for a small generic form. The cheat sheet does not attempt to guess a value.
- Vendor-specific crawler tokens — The general target uses the unqualified name robots. A Google-specific target uses googlebot or googlebot-news. Other crawler names and vendor behaviors sit outside this focused interface and would dilute the validated output.
Numeric Limits and Validation Rules
Three of the supported directives take numeric values, and each has constraints that are easy to violate with a hand-typed rule. The Meta Robots Generator enforces these constraints at the input level rather than copying an unrecognized string into a tag Google would silently ignore.
- max-snippet — Characters of text allowed in a snippet. Accepts -1 (let Google choose an effective length) or a non-negative whole number. The value 0 is equivalent to nosnippet, and the two are not combined in one tag.
- max-video-preview — Seconds of video preview. Accepts -1 (no limit) or a non-negative whole number. A value of 0 permits at most a static image thumbnail under the image-preview rule.
- max-image-preview — One of the three documented keyword values: none, standard, or large. Numeric input is not part of this directive's vocabulary.
Two combinations are also blocked at generation time: nosnippet cannot appear alongside max-snippet, because the more restrictive nosnippet would make the numeric choice misleading, and indexifembedded must appear alongside noindex, because the rule only has an effect when the page would otherwise be excluded from results.
How to Generate a Validated Robots Meta Tag
The Meta Robots Generator turns a single policy decision into both an HTML meta element and an HTTP response header. The order of operations is the same whether the goal is a one-off page or a recurring template.
- Choose the crawler target: general search crawlers, Googlebot text results, or Googlebot News. The token selected here becomes the name attribute in HTML and the user-agent prefix in the header.
- Pick only the indexing, link-following, and preview restrictions that match the resource policy. Numeric values must be -1 or non-negative integers, and max-image-preview must be one of the three documented keywords.
- Generate and copy either the HTML meta element for a page or the X-Robots-Tag header for a server response. The two strings come from the same validated set so they always agree.
- Deploy the chosen output while allowing crawl access. Pasting a header value into page content has no effect; X-Robots-Tag must be set by the web server, application, or CDN.
- Inspect the public source and headers for duplicate or conflicting rules until recrawling occurs. A CMS, SEO plugin, reverse proxy, and CDN can each add directives, so the delivered HTML and actual response headers are the only reliable sources.
HTML Meta Element vs X-Robots-Tag Header
The two output formats express the same rule in two different channels. Use the table to decide which one fits the resource you control.
| Channel | Where it is set | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| HTML meta element | Inside the head of an HTML page you author or template. | HTML pages where markup is the controlled channel. |
| X-Robots-Tag HTTP header | Web server, application, or CDN configuration on the response. | Non-HTML resources such as PDFs, images, and video, or deployments where headers are more reliable than rendered markup. |
The generator emits the same directive set in both forms. A general target produces a meta element named robots with no user-agent prefix, plus an unqualified X-Robots-Tag header. A Google-specific target uses googlebot or googlebot-news as the meta name and prefixes that user agent in the header value.
Deployment Checks After Pasting the Tag
Three quick inspections catch the most common reasons a robots directive silently fails to take effect.
- Crawl access — A crawler must be allowed to fetch the resource before it can read either form. If robots.txt disallows crawling, the noindex rule may never be seen and the URL can stay indexed through external links.
- Channel match — A meta element belongs in the page head; an X-Robots-Tag belongs on the response. Pasting the header text into page content has no effect.
- Duplicate or conflicting rules — Google applies the more restrictive rule when multiple declarations disagree, so inventory existing output from the CMS, plugin, reverse proxy, and CDN before adding a new tag.
Search engines process changes on their own crawl schedule, and other engines may interpret Google-specific directives differently. The generator produces exact syntax; it cannot guarantee deindexing, timing, or a particular search-result presentation.
If you're weighing options, How to Put Basic Meta Tags in Your Website Head covers this in detail.