noarchive is a robots rule that used to stop Google from showing a cached link to a saved copy of a page in search results. The term is historical for Google.
What applies today?
Google’s documentation lists noarchive among its historical and unused rules. It says the rule is no longer used to control whether a cached link is shown, because the cached link feature no longer exists, and Google ignores it. Existing tags can stay, since other search engines and services may use them.
Bing announced in September 2023 how noarchive and nocache affect Bing Chat. According to that post, content tagged noarchive is not included or linked in Bing Chat answers and is not used to train Microsoft’s generative AI models. It stays visible in Bing’s search results. With nocache, Bing may show URL, title and snippet in answers.
| Rule | Where it's set | What it controls in Google Search | Effect on AI Overviews and AI Mode |
|---|---|---|---|
nosnippet | whole page (robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag) | no text snippet or video preview; a static image thumbnail may still appear | content isn't used as direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode |
max-snippet:[number] | whole page | caps the text snippet at that many characters; 0 equals nosnippet, -1 lets Google choose the length | limits how much content may be used as direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode |
data-nosnippet | single text section (attribute on span, div or section) | the marked text isn't used in the snippet | listed by Google as a control for limiting content in AI features in Search |
max-image-preview:[none|standard|large] | whole page | maximum size of the image preview; without it, a default-size preview may be shown | Google only lists web search, Google Images, Discover and Assistant here, no AI features |
noimageindex | whole page | images on this page aren't indexed | no statement from Google |
unavailable_after: [date] | whole page | the page stops appearing in search results after that date; Googlebot then crawls the URL much less often | no separate statement from Google |
indexifembedded | whole page, only together with noindex | content may be indexed when embedded in another page through an iframe or similar tag | no statement from Google |
noindex (for comparison) | whole page | page doesn't appear in search results | listed by Google as a control for AI features; a link in AI Overviews or AI Mode requires an indexed page |
noarchive (this term) | whole page | no longer used by Google and ignored; the cached link it controlled no longer exists | none (Google ignores the rule) |
According to Google, a page can only be shown as a link in AI Overviews or AI Mode if it's indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet. All rules only work if crawlers are allowed to fetch the page. When rules conflict, the more restrictive one applies. For AI training and grounding in some of Google's other systems, Google points to Google-Extended. Sources: Google Search Central: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications (last updated 2026-03-24); Google Search Central: AI features and your website (last updated 2025-12-10). Last checked: .
Example
<meta name="robots" content="noarchive">
At Google this tag has no effect. At Bing it has the effect described above.
Sources
- Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Announcing new options for webmasters to control usage of their content in Bing Chat – Bing Webmaster Blog (09/2023)blogs.bing.com
- Robots meta tags and attributes that Bing supports – Bing Webmaster Toolsbing.com
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