Noarchive
Google's current documentation lists noarchive under historical and unused rules — it's ignored on Search. Bing still uses it to control Chat/Copilot answer inclusion and AI-training opt-out. Syntax, the 2024 Google timeline, and when it still matters.
Noarchive is a robots meta directive (`<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">`) that once removed Google's 'Cached' link. Google's current documentation lists `noarchive` under 'historical and other unused rules' and says it's ignored, because the cached-link feature no longer exists (retired Feb 2024; the `cache:` operator followed by Sept 2024). Google's Search Liaison said in 2024 the rule would still be respected, but Google's own current docs say otherwise — treat it as inert on Google today, not a quietly-honored control. It's not access control either, and can't stop scraping, browser/CDN caching, screenshots, or third-party archiving. The real reason to still add it is Bing: since September 2023, `noarchive` opts your content out of Bing Chat/Copilot answers and Microsoft's AI training, while `nocache` is a lighter-touch variant. It's distinct from `noindex` (removes the page from results) and `nosnippet` (hides the preview snippet). Use the `X-Robots-Tag: noarchive` header for non-HTML files.
TL;DR —
Evidence for this claim Google lists noarchive as a historical rule it no longer uses because cached links are no longer available in Google Search. Scope: Current Google Search behavior only. Confidence: high · Verified: Google Search Central: Historical robots rules Evidence for this claim Microsoft documents noarchive as preventing use of page content in Bing Chat/Copilot answers, links from those answers, and generative AI foundation-model training while leaving ordinary Bing web-search visibility available. Scope: Microsoft Bing/Copilot controls; distinct from Google Search, noindex, and independent web archives. Confidence: high · Verified: Bing Webmaster Blog: New controls for webmastersnoarchiveis a small tag you can add to a page that tells search engines not to keep a saved “cached” copy of it. Google used to show a Cached link next to results — it removed that feature in 2024, so on Google the tag now does nothing you can see. It still has a real job on Bing, though: it tells Bing not to use your content in its AI chat answers or to train its AI. It does not remove your page from search (that’snoindex).
What noarchive does
When you look at a search result, engines used to offer a cached copy — a saved
snapshot of the page you could open if the live page was slow or down. The
noarchive tag told them: don’t keep that saved copy available.
You add it in the <head> of your page like this:
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">That’s it. It’s one of the “robots” directives — the same family as noindex and
nosnippet that I cover across the meta tagsMeta tags are HTML elements in a page's head that pass metadata about the page to search engines and browsers. For SEO only a few matter — the title element, the meta description, and the robots meta tag — while meta keywords and most others are ignored. hub.
The big change: Google removed cached pages
Here’s the thing most write-ups get wrong. In February 2024, Google removed the
“Cached” link from its search results entirely, and by September 2024 it also
shut off the old cache: search operator. Because the cached feature itself is
gone, noarchive no longer has anything to hide on Google — there’s no cached link
for it to remove anymore.
So on Google specifically, this tag is now invisible. It isn’t broken, and Google still reads it — it just has no visible effect.
Why you might still want it
The tag isn’t dead. Two reasons it can still matter:
- Bing uses it for AI. Since 2023, Bing treats
noarchiveas “don’t use this page in Bing Chat/Copilot answers, and don’t use it to train our AI.” That’s a live, real reason to add it if you want to keep your content out of Bing’s AI. - It’s harmless on Google. Google’s current documentation lists it as an
ignored, unused rule, so an old
noarchivetag left over from years ago isn’t hurting anything. You don’t need to rush to remove it — just don’t count on it doing anything there.
What it is not
Don’t confuse these:
noarchive= no saved copy. Your page still shows up in search normally.noindex= remove the page from search results entirely.nosnippet= still indexedStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed., but no preview text/description under the result.
Want the exact syntax for files like PDFs, the full 2024 timeline, the Bing
noarchive-vs-nocache distinction, and when it’s actually worth using in 2026?
Switch to the Advanced tab.
Misuses and stale assumptions
- Using
noarchiveto remove a page from search. It never controlled indexingStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed.; usenoindexwhen that is the actual goal. - Using it to suppress the result snippet.
nosnippetormax-snippet:0controls preview text.noarchivedoes not. - Claiming it still hides Google’s Cached link. Google removed cached pages in 2024, so the directive has no visible Google cache feature left to control.
- Calling it universally dead. Google’s visible use is historical, but Bing gives the directive a current role in Chat/Copilot and AI-training controls.
- Treating it as a Wayback Machine block. It is a search-engine robots rule, not a universal archival prohibition.
- Using it as access control for sensitive content.
noarchivecannot stop someone from viewing, screenshotting, or copying the live page, and it does nothing about browser/CDN cachingCaching stores a copy of a page or resource — in a browser, a CDN edge node, or a search crawler's own cache — so it can be served again without regenerating or re-downloading it. It isn't a direct ranking factor, but it feeds page speed and crawl efficiency. or third-party archivers. It’s a request to search engines, honored inconsistently — not a security boundary. - Assuming
noarchiveandnocacheare interchangeable on Bing. Their current AI-reuse behavior differs, and combining them can produce a counterintuitive result; verify Bing’s current documentation before rollout.
Pick the directive that matches the outcome
| Goal | Directive | IndexedStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed.? | Snippet? | Important caveat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suppress a cached/archived copy where supported | noarchive | Yes | Yes | Google no longer has a cached-link feature; Bing assigns it current AI-reuse behavior |
| Remove the page from results | noindex | No | N/A | The page must remain crawlable so the engine can see the rule |
| Keep the result but hide its preview | nosnippet | Yes | No | Also affects Google’s use of content in some AI searchAI search uses large language models and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to synthesize an answer from multiple sources rather than returning a ranked list of links. Examples include Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Perplexity. features |
| Set the maximum text-snippet length | max-snippet:N | Yes | Capped | max-snippet:0 is equivalent to nosnippet for the snippet |
Delivery: use <meta name="robots" content="…"> for HTML. Use the
X-Robots-Tag response header for PDFs and other non-HTML resources.
Do not substitute: robots.txt controls crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor., not cached copies, snippets,
or guaranteed removal from the index.
TL;DR —
Evidence for this claim Google lists noarchive as a historical rule it no longer uses because cached links are no longer available in Google Search. Scope: Current Google Search behavior only. Confidence: high · Verified: Google Search Central: Historical robots rules Evidence for this claim Microsoft documents noarchive as preventing use of page content in Bing Chat/Copilot answers, links from those answers, and generative AI foundation-model training while leaving ordinary Bing web-search visibility available. Scope: Microsoft Bing/Copilot controls; distinct from Google Search, noindex, and independent web archives. Confidence: high · Verified: Bing Webmaster Blog: New controls for webmastersnoarchive(<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">, or theX-Robots-Tag: noarchiveheader for non-HTML files) once removed Google’s “Cached” link. Google retired cached pages in Feb 2024 and thecache:operator by ~Sept 2024, so Google now listsnoarchiveunder “historical and other unused rules” — it’s inert on Google’s SERPs. The differentiating reason to still care is Bing: since Sept 2023,noarchiveopts content out of Bing Chat/Copilot answers and Microsoft’s AI training, whilenocacheis a lighter-touch variant. It’s distinct fromnoindex(drops the page) andnosnippet(hides the preview). It does not stop the Wayback Machine.
What noarchive is — a serving directive, not an index control
noarchive is one of the robots meta directivesThe robots meta tag is an HTML element in a page's head — <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex\"> — that tells search engines how to index and serve that page. It's crawl-then-obey: a page blocked in robots.txt is never fetched, so the tag is never seen.. Its historical job was narrow:
stop search engines from keeping a cached/archived copy of the page available to
searchers. It never removed the page from the indexStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed., never touched rankings, and
never suppressed the snippet — it only governed the cached copy.
The syntax is a standard robots meta tagThe robots meta tag is an HTML element in a page's head — <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex\"> — that tells search engines how to index and serve that page. It's crawl-then-obey: a page blocked in robots.txt is never fetched, so the tag is never seen.:
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">You can scope it to a single engine’s crawlerA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index. instead of all of them —
<meta name="googlebot" content="noarchive"> for Google only, or
<meta name="bingbot" content="noarchive"> for Bing only — and you can combine it
with other directives in one tag (e.g. content="noarchive, nosnippet").
The X-Robots-Tag header — for PDFs and other non-HTML files
A <meta> tag only works where there’s an HTML <head> to put it in. For a PDF,
an image, or any non-HTML resource, you send the same directive as an HTTP response
header instead. Google’s spec is explicit that this works for any rule: “The
X-Robots-Tag can be used as an element of the HTTP header response for a given URL.
Any rule that can be used in a robots meta tag can also be specified as an
X-Robots-Tag.”
So the header form is:
X-Robots-Tag: noarchiveThis is the same delivery pattern as noindex and the rest of the robots family —
head meta tag for HTML, HTTP header for everything else.
Why noarchive does nothing on Google anymore
Google removed cached pages. The timeline is worth pinning down because almost no competing article connects it back to what it means for this specific tag:
- February 2024 — Google removed the “Cached” link from search results.
- ~September 2024 — Google finished killing the
cache:search operator, per Search Engine Land’s follow-up coverage. Roughly a seven-to-eight-month wind-down.
Because there’s no cached feature left, noarchive has nothing to act on. Google
now files it under “the following rules aren’t used by Google Search and are
ignored. We’re including these rules here because people have often asked about
them or we used them in the past” —
its “historical and other unused rules” section. On noarchive specifically:
“The noarchive rule is no longer used by Google Search to control whether a cached
link is shown in search results, as the cached link feature no longer
exists.”
The adjacent nocache rule gets the same treatment — “The nocache rule isn’t used
by Google Search” —
which matters because people constantly treat the two as synonyms (they diverge on
Bing; see below).
What Sullivan said in 2024 — and what Google’s current docs say now
Here’s a nuance worth being precise about, because two Google-sourced statements
don’t fully agree. When the cache link was going away, Google’s Search Liaison
Danny Sullivan addressed noarchive directly: “You’re going to see cache: go away
in the near future, too. But wait, I hear you ask, what about noarchive? We’ll
still respect that; no need to mess with it. Plus, others beyond us use
it.”
That was Sullivan’s on-the-record position in September 2024.
But Google’s own current documentation is more direct than that quote: “The
following rules aren’t used by Google Search and are ignored.”
“Ignored” is a stronger claim than “we’ll still respect that,” and the two
statements don’t fully square up. The governing source is Google’s own current
documentation, not a two-year-old quote — so I’m not going to tell you noarchive
is quietly honored on Google. Treat it as a rule Google’s Search docs say it
doesn’t act on today.
Practically, the outcome barely changes either way: whether Google “ignores” the
rule outright or once “respected” it with zero visible effect, there’s nothing on
Google’s SERPs noarchive controls anymore, and no reason to add it there for
Google’s sake. The difference matters for how you describe the tag accurately —
not for what you should do about it.
noarchive vs noindex vs nosnippet vs max-snippet
These get muddled constantly. They live in the same robots family but do completely different jobs:
| Directive | Page still indexed? | Snippet still shown? | What it controls |
|---|---|---|---|
noarchive | Yes | Yes | The cached/archived copy (inert on Google; live on Bing for AI) |
noindex | No | N/A | Removes the page from search results entirely |
nosnippet | Yes | No | Suppresses the text snippet / video preview |
max-snippet:0 | Yes | No | Caps snippet length to zero — functionally like nosnippet |
Google’s own definitions: noindex is “Do not show this page, media, or resource
in search results”,
and nosnippet is “Do not show a text snippet or video preview in the search
results for this page” —
and notably, that same nosnippet rule now also “prevent[s] the content from being
used as a direct input for AI OverviewsAI Overviews are the AI-generated summary box Google shows above or within its regular search results, written by Gemini models from pages retrieved out of Google's normal Search index. It's a Search feature, not a separate platform or index. and AI Mode.” If your goal is “don’t show
any preview text on Google,” nosnippet or max-snippet:0
(Google: “0: No snippet is to be shown. Equivalent to nosnippetnosnippet is a robots directive (meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header) that suppresses all snippet text and the video preview for a whole page; data-nosnippet is an HTML attribute on span, div, or section that excludes just that section from the snippet.”) is the tool —
not noarchive, which never touched snippets in the first place.
Where noarchive still earns its keep: Bing and AI
This is the real 2026 story, and it’s the angle almost nobody covers. Bing gives
noarchive a current, meaningful function that has nothing to do with the old
cache link.
Per Bing’s September 2023 announcement about controlling how content is used in Bing Chat, the tags now break down roughly like this:
noarchive-tagged content is not included in Bing Chat/Copilot answers, isn’t linked to there, and isn’t used to train Microsoft’s generative AI foundation models.nocache-tagged content may still appear in Bing Chat answers, but only as URL / title / snippet — and those elements may still be used in training.- If a page carries both tags, Bing treats it as
nocache(the less restrictive of the two — genuinely counterintuitive, so worth noting). - Content with neither tag is fair game for both Bing Chat answers and AI training.
- Either way, normal Bing web-search visibility is untouched — the page still ranks in Bing’s regular organic results.
noarchive/nocache behavior above is
described from Bing’s own September 2023 blog post rather than quoted verbatim;
confirm the exact wording in a browser before treating any single sentence as a
direct Bing quote. That announcement is also the only primary source behind this
section — it documents Bing’s policy as of September 2023, not an independently
reverified 2026 confirmation across every current Copilot, partner, or
captioning surface. Nothing foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. in this research contradicts it, but treat it as
“documented policy since 2023” rather than a guarantee that behavior is identical
everywhere Bing content appears today.So on Bing this is the cruxChrome User Experience Report — Google's public dataset of real-world (field) performance data from eligible Chrome users. It's the official field-data source behind the Core Web Vitals program., reframed: the question noarchive answers is no longer
just “may users view a cached copy?” — it’s “may Bing reuse this content inside AI
chat answers and use it to train models?” That’s the differentiator, and it’s why I
lead with Bing rather than the dead Google cache link.
When to still use noarchive in 2026
- To opt out of Bing’s AI/chat reuse and training — the single strongest,
most current reason. If you don’t want your content feeding Bing Chat/Copilot
answers or Microsoft’s model training,
noarchiveis the lever. - Time-sensitive pages, as a convention-following courtesy — promos that
expire or pages you’d rather crawlersA crawler — also called a spider or bot — is an automated program that fetches web pages, extracts their links, and queues new URLs to visit. Search engines use crawlers to discover and download content for their index. that still honor
noarchive(ornocache) not keep an archived copy of. This is not a security control: it does nothing to stop the live page from being viewed, screenshotted, copied, cached by a browser or CDN, or archived by tools that don’t honor the directive. For paywalled or genuinely sensitive content, use real access control (authentication, IP restriction) — notnoarchive. - As harmless legacy — if it’s already in your templates, leaving it costs you nothing on Google and does a real job on Bing.
For most sites, noarchive is boilerplate carried over from a pre-2024 mental
model — and that’s fine. It becomes genuinely useful again only when you actively
want to control AI reuse on Bing, or as a defensive habit on content you’d rather
not see archived by tools that still respect the tag.
Myths worth clearing up
- “noarchiveNoarchive is a robots meta directive that tells search engines not to keep a cached copy of a page. Google's current documentation lists it under historical and unused rules and says it's ignored, because the cached-link feature it once controlled no longer exists — but on Bing it still controls whether content is used in Bing Chat/Copilot answers and AI training. It is not an access-control measure. still hides a Cached link on Google.” No — the cached feature is gone for everyone, tag or not. Google’s docs say the rule “is no longer used…as the cached link feature no longer exists.”
- “noarchive is a dead tag, delete it.” Not urgent either way — Google’s docs now say the rule is ignored, but leaving it costs you nothing there, and it has live effect on Bing’s AI surfaces. Removing it can matter on Bing even though it won’t matter on Google.
- “noarchive protects sensitive or private content.” No — it’s a request to search engines, honored inconsistently, and does nothing to prevent the origin page from being viewed, screenshotted, copied, cached by a browser/CDN, or archived by a tool that doesn’t honor it. Use actual access control for anything you need to keep private.
- “noarchive affects rankings.” There’s no documented ranking effect — it’s a serving-behavior rule, not a ranking signal. You’ll see a widely repeated claim attributed to John Mueller that it doesn’t impact rankings; I couldn’t trace that to a verifiable original source, so I won’t present it as a quote — but the directional claim (no ranking impact) is consistent with how Google documents the tag.
- “noarchive stops the Wayback Machine.” No — it’s a search-engine directive, not a universal do-not-archive instruction. The Internet Archive and other third-party archivers don’t act on it.
- “noarchive and nocache are the same everywhere.” Historically yes, and still true as a baseline synonym for classic cachingCaching stores a copy of a page or resource — in a browser, a CDN edge node, or a search crawler's own cache — so it can be served again without regenerating or re-downloading it. It isn't a direct ranking factor, but it feeds page speed and crawl efficiency. — but no longer true on Bing, where they now carry different AI-reuse meanings.
Where noarchive fits with everything else
noarchive sits in the robots meta family alongside noindex (its index-control
cousin) and nosnippet / max-snippet (the snippet controls), all delivered
through the robots meta tag in the head or the X-Robots-Tag header for non-HTML
files — the same delivery mechanics covered across the meta tagsMeta tags are HTML elements in a page's head that pass metadata about the page to search engines and browsers. For SEO only a few matter — the title element, the meta description, and the robots meta tag — while meta keywords and most others are ignored. hub. The one-line
summary: on Google it’s a documented, ignored historical rule with no visible
effect; on Bing it’s a live, current control over AI-answer inclusion and model
training; on neither engine is it a security or access control. Keep those
realities separate and noarchive stops being confusing.
AI summary
A condensed take on the Advanced version:
noarchive= no cached/archived copy of the page. Syntax:<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">, or theX-Robots-Tag: noarchiveheader for non-HTML files (PDFs, images). It never removed the page or the snippet — only the cached copy.- Google removed cached pages (Feb 2024) and the
cache:operator (~Sept 2024), sonoarchiveis now inert on Google and listed under “historical and other unused rules”: “no longer used…as the cached link feature no longer exists.” - Sullivan’s 2024 quote vs. Google’s current docs. Danny Sullivan said in 2024 Google would “still respect” the rule, but Google’s current documentation says the rule “aren’t used by Google Search and are ignored” — the governing source is the current docs, so don’t call it a live, quietly-honored Google control.
- Bing is the real reason to care. Since Sept 2023:
noarchiveopts content out of Bing Chat/Copilot answers and Microsoft’s AI training;nocacheis lighter (URL/title/snippet may still appear and be used for training). Both leave normal Bing web ranking untouched. (That’s Bing’s Sept 2023 policy, not independently reverified across every current surface.) - Distinct from siblings:
noindexremoves the page from results;nosnippet/max-snippet:0hide the preview text.noarchivetouches none of those. - Not access control. It can’t stop origin access, screenshots, browser/CDN cachingCaching stores a copy of a page or resource — in a browser, a CDN edge node, or a search crawler's own cache — so it can be served again without regenerating or re-downloading it. It isn't a direct ranking factor, but it feeds page speed and crawl efficiency., or third-party archiving — including the Wayback Machine.
- When to use it in 2026: primarily to opt out of Bing’s AI reuse/training; also for time-sensitive pages as a convention-following courtesy (not a security measure); harmless as legacy on Google.
Official documentation
Primary-source documentation from the search engines.
- Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications — the full robots directive spec, including
noarchiveunder “historical and other unused rules” and theX-Robots-Tagheader form. - Reference of historical and other unused rules — where
noarchiveandnocachenow live, and why Google keeps documenting them.
Bing / Microsoft
- Announcing new options for webmasters to control usage of their content in Bing Chat — Bing’s first-party post giving
NOARCHIVEandNOCACHEtheir AI-answer / AI-training meanings (Sept 2023). - Robots meta tags and attributes that Bing supports — Bing’s robots-tag reference (renders client-side; confirm specifics in a live browser).
Quotes from the source
On-the-record statements from Google. Each link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage on the source page.
Google — noarchiveNoarchive is a robots meta directive that tells search engines not to keep a cached copy of a page. Google's current documentation lists it under historical and unused rules and says it's ignored, because the cached-link feature it once controlled no longer exists — but on Bing it still controls whether content is used in Bing Chat/Copilot answers and AI training. It is not an access-control measure. is now a historical/unused rule
- “The following rules aren’t used by Google Search and are ignored. We’re including these rules here because people have often asked about them or we used them in the past.” — Google Search Central docs, the lead-in to the historical rules section. Jump to quote
- “The noarchive rule is no longer used by Google Search to control whether a cached link is shown in search results, as the cached link feature no longer exists.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote
- “The nocache rule isn’t used by Google Search.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote
Google — the X-Robots-Tag headerThe X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header that carries the same indexing and serving directives as the robots meta tag (noindex, nofollow, nosnippet, and the rest). Because it lives in the header rather than the HTML, it's how you control indexing for non-HTML files like PDFs, images, and videos. form
- “The X-Robots-TagThe X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header that carries the same indexing and serving directives as the robots meta tag (noindex, nofollow, nosnippet, and the rest). Because it lives in the header rather than the HTML, it's how you control indexing for non-HTML files like PDFs, images, and videos. can be used as an element of the HTTP header response for a given URL. Any rule that can be used in a robots meta tagThe robots meta tag is an HTML element in a page's head — <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex\"> — that tells search engines how to index and serve that page. It's crawl-then-obey: a page blocked in robots.txt is never fetched, so the tag is never seen. can also be specified as an X-Robots-Tag.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote
Google — the sibling directives, for contrast
- “Do not show this page, media, or resource in search results.” — the
noindexdefinition. Jump to quote - “Do not show a text snippet or video preview in the search results for this page.” — the
nosnippetdefinition. Jump to quote - “0: No snippet is to be shown. Equivalent to nosnippetnosnippet is a robots directive (meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header) that suppresses all snippet text and the video preview for a whole page; data-nosnippet is an HTML attribute on span, div, or section that excludes just that section from the snippet..” — the
max-snippetvalue that mirrorsnosnippet. Jump to quote
Danny Sullivan, Google Search Liaison — September 2024 comment (superseded by the current Google docs quoted above)
- “You’re going to see cache: go away in the near future, too. But wait, I hear you ask, what about noarchive? We’ll still respect that; no need to mess with it. Plus, others beyond us use it.” — Danny Sullivan, quoted in Barry Schwartz, “Google Search completely kills the cache feature,” Search Engine Land (Sept 24, 2024). Jump to quote
- “Yes, it’s been removed. I know, it’s sad. I’m sad too. It’s one of our oldest features.” — Danny Sullivan on retiring the cache link, same coverage. Read the coverage
Bing — AI-usage controls (paraphrased, not quoted)
Bing’s September 2023 announcement gives noarchive and nocache distinct meanings
for Bing Chat/Copilot answer inclusion and AI training. Because Bing’s live robots-tag
help page renders client-side and could not be verified verbatim in research, the
specific behavior is summarized from Bing’s blog post rather than quoted.
Bing Webmaster Blog (Sept 2023)
Test yourself: Noarchive
Five quick questions on what the noarchiveNoarchive is a robots meta directive that tells search engines not to keep a cached copy of a page. Google's current documentation lists it under historical and unused rules and says it's ignored, because the cached-link feature it once controlled no longer exists — but on Bing it still controls whether content is used in Bing Chat/Copilot answers and AI training. It is not an access-control measure. tag does today. Pick an answer for each, then check.
Noarchive
Noarchive is a robots meta directive that tells search engines not to keep a cached copy of a page. Google's current documentation lists it under historical and unused rules and says it's ignored, because the cached-link feature it once controlled no longer exists — but on Bing it still controls whether content is used in Bing Chat/Copilot answers and AI training. It is not an access-control measure.
Related: Robots Meta Tag, nosnippet & data-nosnippet, Noindex, X-Robots-Tag
Noarchive
noarchive is a robots meta directiveThe robots meta tag is an HTML element in a page's head — <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex\"> — that tells search engines how to index and serve that page. It's crawl-then-obey: a page blocked in robots.txt is never fetched, so the tag is never seen. — <meta name="robots" content="noarchive"> — that tells search engines not to keep a cached (archived) copy of a page available to users. Historically it removed the “Cached” link Google showed next to a search result. It can also be sent as an X-Robots-Tag: noarchive HTTP response header, which is how you apply it to non-HTML files like PDFs and images that have no <head> for a meta tag.
Google retired the cached-link feature in February 2024 and later removed the cache: search operator. Google’s current robots-meta documentation lists noarchive under “historical and other unused rules” and states the rule “is no longer used by Google Search… as the cached link feature no longer exists” — treat it as ignored on Google today, not a quietly-honored control (Google’s Search Liaison said in 2024 the rule would still be respected, but the current docs are the governing source and are more direct than that quote).
The reason noarchive still matters is Bing. Under Bing’s September 2023 policy, a noarchive-tagged page is excluded from Bing Chat answers and from training Microsoft’s generative AI foundation models, while the related nocache tag is a lighter-touch option. noarchive is distinct from noindex (which removes a page from results entirely) and from nosnippet (which suppresses the text/preview snippet but leaves the page indexedStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed.). It is not an access-control measure — it does not stop the page from being viewed, screenshotted, cached by a browser/CDN, or archived by third-party services like the Wayback Machine.
Related: Robots Meta Tag, nosnippet & data-nosnippet, Noindex, X-Robots-Tag
Build-time retrieval analysis plus live signals for this exact article. The automatic chunk report includes a deterministic readiness score and is ready without a model download.
Search Console
sampleGA4 traffic (28d)
sampleCloudflare traffic (7d)
sampledCrUX field data (28d, phone)
sampleGoogle NLP entities
localChangelog
Updated Jul 19, 2026.
Editorial summary and recorded change details.Summary
Bound the Bing Copilot, linking, and training claims to a verified article evidence record and shared tool-evidence route.
Change details
-
Added an adjacent evidence marker to the Bing policy matrix so future content deltas cannot silently detach the source.
Full comparison unavailable — no prior snapshot was archived for this revision.
Updated Jul 18, 2026.
Editorial summary and recorded change details.Summary
Corrected the article's central claim after live-verifying Google's current robots-meta-tag documentation: noarchive is now documented as an ignored, unused rule on Google, not a directive Google 'still respects.' Also clarified noarchive is not an access-control/security measure and added a freshness caveat to the Bing AI-training claim.
Change details
-
Reframed every 'Google still respects noarchive' claim (title, description, tldr, Advanced lens, AI summary, quiz) to lead with Google's current documented status: an ignored, historical/unused rule. Danny Sullivan's 2024 remark is now presented as a dated historical statement that Google's own current docs supersede, not as the present-tense status.
-
Removed the implication that noarchive protects sensitive/gated content; added an explicit non-access-control caveat (can't stop origin access, screenshots, browser/CDN caching, or third-party archiving) to the 'when to use it' section and myths list.
-
Added a freshness caveat to the Bing Chat/Copilot and AI-training claim, noting it reflects Bing's September 2023 announcement and hasn't been independently reverified across every current Copilot/partner surface.
-
Rewrote quiz question 3 to test Google's current official documentation instead of presenting the 2024 Sullivan quote as Google's present-day stance.
Full comparison unavailable — no prior snapshot was archived for this revision.