How to Noindex Archive Subpages in WordPress (Rank Math and Yoast SEO, 2026)

Want to noindex archive subpages, the /page/2/, /page/3/ pages of your WordPress categories, tags and blog index, so Google doesn’t fill its index with thin lists of posts? Yoast SEO removed its built-in option years ago, and Rank Math handles it differently. Here’s how to do it in both plugins in 2026, with code where needed, and whether you should do it at all.

Quick answer: In Rank Math, go to Titles & Meta → Misc. Pages and turn on the noindex option for paginated pages. In Yoast SEO, there’s no setting, so add a small wpseo_robots filter to your theme’s functions.php (code below). Before you do, read the section on whether it’s a good idea.

What are archive subpages?

WordPress splits long lists of posts into pages. Your category, tag, author, date and main blog archives each get extra URLs like /category/seo/page/2/, /tag/google/page/7/ and /page/15/. On a big, old blog these can add up to thousands of URLs that are just lists of excerpts.

When we switched SEO plugins in 2020, our indexed page count suddenly doubled. A site: search showed hundreds of tag archive subpages in Google, as in the screenshot above.

Should you noindex paginated archive pages?

This is genuinely debated, so it’s worth understanding both sides:

• Arguments against (Yoast’s view): Yoast removed its option because noindexed pages get crawled less over time, and Google may eventually stop following their links. If your older posts are only reachable through deep archive pages, noindexing them can make those posts harder for Google to find. Google also stopped using rel=”next”/”prev” pagination tags in 2019 and treats each paginated page as a normal page.
• Arguments for: on large sites with many tags, thousands of thin archive subpages can waste crawl budget, compete with real articles in search, and look like low-quality pages. Noindexing them, while keeping follow, keeps the index focused on your actual content.

Our recommendation: noindex paginated subpages on large sites with lots of tags and categories, but make sure every important post is also reachable through a good XML sitemap and internal links. Keep page 1 of each archive indexed, and never noindex your actual posts.

How to noindex archive subpages in Rank Math

1. Go to Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta → Misc. Pages.
2. Turn on the noindex option for paginated pages. See Rank Math’s guide on noindexing paginated pages.
3. Save changes and clear your cache.

If you’d rather control it with code, Rank Math offers a robots filter. Add this to your child theme’s functions.php or a code snippets plugin:

add_filter( 'rank_math/frontend/robots', function( $robots ) {
    if ( is_paged() ) {
        $robots['index']  = 'noindex';
        $robots['follow'] = 'follow';
    }
    return $robots;
} );

How to noindex archive subpages in Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO no longer has a setting for this, so use its wpseo_robots filter.

Option 1: noindex all paginated pages

This covers category, tag and other archive subpages, plus /page/2/ onwards of your main blog index:

add_filter( 'wpseo_robots', function( $robots ) {
    if ( is_paged() ) {
        return 'noindex,follow';
    }
    return $robots;
} );

Option 2: noindex only category and tag subpages

This leaves the paginated pages of your main blog index indexable:

add_filter( 'wpseo_robots', function( $robots ) {
    if ( is_paged() && is_archive() ) {
        return 'noindex,follow';
    }
    return $robots;
} );

is_paged() is true on any page 2 and onwards, and is_archive() limits the rule to category, tag, author and date archives.

Check it’s working

1. Open any /page/2/ URL on your site, view the page source and look for <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">.
2. Check that page 1 of the same archive does not have noindex.
3. In Google Search Console, watch the Pages report. Over the following weeks, the subpages will move to “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag”.

If you’ve deleted pages entirely rather than noindexing them, a 410 Gone status removes them from Google faster.

A word of caution

Noindexing can remove thousands of URLs from Google’s index at once. Test the code on a staging site or check a few pages carefully first, keep a backup of functions.php, and watch your traffic in Search Console for a few weeks afterwards. Our list of free Google SEO tools can help you monitor it.

Frequently asked questions

Will noindexing archive pages hurt my rankings?

Not usually, if your posts are in your sitemap and well linked. Problems happen when posts can only be found through deep archive pages.

Should I use noindex or a canonical tag for paginated pages?

Don’t point page 2, 3 and so on to page 1 with a canonical tag. Google advises each paginated page to have a self-referencing canonical. Use noindex if you want them out of search.

Should I noindex tag pages completely?

On many blogs, yes, especially if you have lots of tags with only one or two posts each. Thin tag pages rarely rank and can dilute your site’s quality.