Crawl and index controls
nosnippet
nosnippet is a robots rule that tells Google not to show a text snippet or video preview for a page in its search results.
In plain words
You add it as a robots meta tag or in an X-Robots-Tag header.
Google says it applies to all forms of search results, including AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Example
A paid newsletter archive wants its pages to be findable, but doesn’t want Google to quote the text. It adds nosnippet. The pages can still appear in results, without a text preview.
<meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">Why it matters for AI search
Google says nosnippet also prevents the content from being used as direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
That makes it a real lever with a real cost: a result without a text preview tells searchers less about your page.
What you can do
- Use it only on pages you really don’t want quoted.
- To hide only part of a page, use data-nosnippet instead.
- To shorten snippets rather than remove them, use max-snippet.
Often confused with
- noindex
- noindex removes the page from results. nosnippet keeps it, without the text preview.
- Google-Extended
- Google-Extended controls Gemini, not AI Overviews. For AI Overviews, nosnippet is the control.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
Facts and sources last checked on 19 October 2026.
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