Blogger SEO settings attract more attention than they deserve. Guides list every toggle as if each one were a ranking lever, and readers end up changing robots tags they do not understand. The reality is simpler. Blogger handles the basics of hosting and publishing, and a few settings let you describe the blog, control what gets indexed and mark individual links. Get those right, leave the rest alone, and spend your time on the posts.
The Blogger SEO settings that matter
Google’s own help page, Help people find your blog on search engines, covers the controls. The table sets out where each one lives and what it is for.
| Setting | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Search description | Blog settings | A summary of the blog to help people choose it in search results |
| Custom robots header tags | Settings → “Crawlers and Indexing” → “Enable custom robots header tags” | Choose robots tags for the homepage, archives, and posts and pages |
| Per-post “No index” | Post editor → “Custom robots tags” | Hides an individual post or page from search |
rel=nofollow | On individual links | Marks a link you do not want to vouch for |
Two of these are routine and two are risky. The search description and nofollow are hard to get badly wrong. The robots settings, site-wide and per post, can remove pages from search entirely, which is why the rest of this post spends most of its time on them.
Search description: write it once, well
The search description is a short summary of the blog. Its purpose is to help people decide to click your blog when it appears in results. It is not a place for a list of keywords. Write one or two plain sentences that say who the blog is for and what it covers, the same way you would describe it to someone who asked.
Search engines do not always show the description you write; they may use text from the page instead if it matches the query better. That is normal. A clear description still gives them a good option, and it costs five minutes. Our guide to meta description length covers how much space you have before the text is cut off.
Custom robots header tags: useful, and easy to get wrong
To use them, go to Settings, open “Crawlers and Indexing” and switch on “Enable custom robots header tags”. You can then choose tags for three groups: the homepage, archive pages, and posts and pages. Each group gets its own set of directives, such as allowing indexing or applying noindex.
Blogger warns about this directly: the tags you select can hide posts and pages from search. Applying noindex to the wrong group is an easy way to make a Blogger blog disappear from Google. A setting meant for archive pages, applied to posts and pages, removes every article you have written.
A reasonable approach for most blogs is to leave posts, pages and the homepage indexable. The case for changing archive settings is that date archives and label pages often repeat content found elsewhere on the blog. Whether noindexing them helps depends on the blog; on a small one it rarely makes a measurable difference. If you are unsure, leave the defaults. Our explainer on the meta robots tag covers what each directive does before you choose.
Whatever you change, write it down with the date. If traffic drops weeks later, a note saying which robots tags you switched on is the fastest way to rule the settings in or out.
A safe order of operations helps. Change one group at a time, save, then open a live post and an archive page and view the source to confirm the robots tag is what you intended. Inspect one of each in Search Console as well. Only move on to the next group once the first is confirmed. It takes longer than flipping every switch at once, and it means a mistake affects one group of pages for a day rather than the whole blog for a month.
Hiding posts and marking links
Two controls work at the level of a single post or link, which makes them much safer than the site-wide settings.
Per-post noindex. In the post editor, under “Custom robots tags”, you can choose “No index” for that post or page. Use it for content that has no reason to appear in search: a thank-you page, an outdated announcement you want to keep for regular readers, or a test post. Then check the setting has not been applied to a post you want found.
Nofollow on links. You can add rel=nofollow to individual links when you do not want to vouch for the destination, such as a paid placement or a link you include only for reference. In the HTML view it looks like <a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">. Links in your own posts to other posts on your blog should normally stay followed. Our guide to nofollow links covers when the attribute is the right call.
What Blogger settings cannot fix
Once the settings are sensible, they stop being the constraint. Blogger blogs rank or fail for the same reasons as any other site: whether the posts answer what people search for, whether they are better than the pages already ranking, and whether other sites link to them. No toggle changes those.
Connect the blog to Google Search Console so you can see what is actually indexed and which queries bring visitors. If you changed robots settings, the indexing reports are where a mistake shows up first. Our guide to using Google Search Console covers the reports worth checking, and the verification guide covers getting the blog connected.
After that, the work is the same as on any platform. Write posts around questions people ask, give each a clear title, link between related posts so readers and crawlers can follow a topic, and describe your images properly. Use labels sparingly and consistently, so each label page groups posts that genuinely belong together rather than repeating the same handful of posts under a dozen near-identical names. Our guides to internal linking and image alt text cover the details.
The limitation is that this post follows Blogger’s help documentation as it stood when we checked it. Blogger’s settings screens have been reorganised before, and labels can move. If a setting is not where this post says, search the current help page by name rather than guessing. And because the robots settings can hide content, check Search Console after any change rather than assuming it worked as intended.
Frequently asked questions
Which Blogger SEO settings should I change?
Write a search description, and leave posts, pages and the homepage indexable. Change custom robots header tags only if you understand each directive.
Where are custom robots header tags in Blogger?
In Settings, under “Crawlers and Indexing”, switch on “Enable custom robots header tags”. You can then choose tags for the homepage, archives, and posts and pages.
How do I hide one Blogger post from Google?
In the post editor, open “Custom robots tags” and choose “No index”. Check it afterwards in Search Console with the URL Inspection tool.
Can Blogger posts rank in Google?
Yes. Rankings depend on content and links far more than on the platform. Keep the settings sensible and focus on the posts.
The takeaway Write a search description, leave posts indexable, use per-post noindex and nofollow where they fit, and check Search Console after any robots change.
