The noarchive robots directive explained
noarchive is a robots directive that asks search engines not to offer a cached copy of a page. This page explains where to set it, which engines historically honoured it, and why its practical relevance changed after Google retired its cache link.
What noarchive does
The noarchive directive asks a search engine not to store or show a cached copy of the page. The page is still crawled, indexed, and ranked; users simply are not offered a cached snapshot.
It is worth noting that Google retired its public cache link feature, so the visible effect of noarchive on Google is reduced compared with the past. Other engines that still surface cached copies may continue to honour the directive, so it remains meaningful across the wider web.
- Asks engines not to show a cached copy
- Page is still crawled, indexed, and ranked
- Google retired its public cache link — effect there is reduced
Where to set it
In a meta robots tag:
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">
Or via the X-Robots-Tag header:
X-Robots-Tag: noarchive
You can scope it to a single crawler by using that crawler's token instead of robots. Because engines differ in how they cache, confirm each target engine's current behavior rather than assuming uniform support.
How it appears in analytics and logs
noarchive is an indexing directive read from your meta robots tag or X-Robots-Tag header. It does not appear in logs and does not change crawl frequency — it affects only whether a cached copy is offered.
Diagnostic use case
Ask search engines not to retain or display a cached version of a page that changes frequently or contains time-sensitive content, while keeping the live page indexed.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID reports crawler activity rather than cache behavior, so noarchive is background context that helps you keep caching-policy questions distinct from the crawler-traffic data WebmasterID provides.
Common mistakes
- Expecting noarchive to remove a page from results — it only affects caching.
- Assuming noarchive still has a strong visible effect on Google after cache links were retired.
- Treating noarchive as access control rather than a request.
Privacy and accuracy notes
noarchive governs caching of your own content. It involves no visitor data and is not an access-control mechanism.
Related pages
- The nosnippet robots directive explained
nosnippet is a Google robots directive that tells Google not to show any text snippet or video preview for a page in search results. This page explains where to set it, what it affects, and how it relates to the finer-grained max-snippet and data-nosnippet controls.
- Meta robots directives reference
The robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag header share a vocabulary of indexing directives. This page is a reference for the common ones — noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, and the max-snippet family — explaining what each does and how to combine them.
- The unavailable_after robots directive explained
unavailable_after is a Google robots directive that tells Google to stop showing a page in search results after a given date and time. This page explains the date format, where to set it, and how it differs from noindex and from removing the page.
- WebmasterID docs
How WebmasterID records crawler activity, not cache state.
Sources and verification notes
- Google — Robots meta tag directives (noarchive)Documents the noarchive directive.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.