II Noindex Nofollow

Lightweight per-post robots control. Mark a single post, page, or custom post type as noindex and/or nofollow. Quick Edit / Bulk Edit supported. Auto-dormant when a full SEO plugin is active. Not an SEO plugin.

Description

A deliberately tiny plugin that does one job: let editors control the robots meta directives for an individual piece of content. It does it everywhere editors expect to find it: in the editor sidebar, in Quick Edit, and in Bulk Edit.

• A Search Robots meta box on every public post type with two checkboxes: Noindex this content and Nofollow links on this content.
• Quick Edit carries the same two checkboxes; values are prefilled from the row state.
• Bulk Edit offers two "No Change / Set / Remove" dropdowns for noindex and nofollow.
• A sortable Robots column shows the resulting state at a glance.
• Directives are emitted through the WordPress core wp_robots filter (WordPress 5.7+), never by manually printing a <meta name="robots"> tag.
• Posts flagged noindex are excluded from the WordPress core sitemap (wp-sitemap.xml).
• Auto-dormant when a full SEO plugin is active (Slim SEO, The SEO Framework, Yoast SEO, Rank Math). The plugin's UI, robots filter, and sitemap filter all step aside so the active SEO plugin owns robots directives entirely. A dismissible admin notice explains the dormancy. Deactivate the other plugin to re-enable.

Directive behaviour

• Nothing checked: no custom robots output (core default).
• Noindex only: noindex, follow.
• Noindex and nofollow: noindex, nofollow.
• Nofollow only: nofollow.

This is not an SEO plugin. By design it does not add, and v2 will not add: SEO titles, meta descriptions, schema, Open Graph, redirects, canonical URL editing, keyword analysis, robots.txt editing, AI features, dashboards, scoring, or sitemap generation.

Filterable

• ii_nnf_post_types — restrict or extend the post types where the meta box, Quick/Bulk Edit, and column appear (default: all public post types except attachment).
• ii_nnf_conflicting_seo — override SEO-plugin conflict detection. Return false to force this plugin to stay active alongside an SEO plugin (use with care).

Installation

1. Upload the ii-noindex-nofollow folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
2. Activate the plugin.
3. Edit any post or page; set the flags in the Search Robots box in the sidebar, or use the new Robots column with Quick Edit and Bulk Edit on the post-list screen.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this work alongside a full SEO plugin?

It auto-detects Slim SEO, The SEO Framework, Yoast, and Rank Math, and goes dormant when one is active so you do not get duplicate robots directives. Use the SEO plugin's own controls in that case. If you want to force this plugin to run alongside, filter ii_nnf_conflicting_seo to return false.

Are noindexed posts removed from my sitemap?

From the WordPress core sitemap, yes (via wp_sitemaps_posts_query_args). Third-party SEO plugins generate their own sitemaps and are not affected by this plugin in v2.

What happens to my flags if I uninstall?

They remain in the database as post meta (_ii_nnf_noindex, _ii_nnf_nofollow), so reinstalling restores them. The plugin ships no uninstall routine that deletes content.

Does it support Gutenberg / the block editor?

Yes. The meta box renders in the block editor and saves through the standard meta-box submission. v2 does not expose the meta in the REST API or as a native block-editor panel.

Changelog

2.1.0

• Added Quick Edit and Bulk Edit support for both noindex and nofollow.
• Added a sortable Robots column (noindex+nofollow > noindex > nofollow > index+follow).
• Added auto-dormancy when Slim SEO, The SEO Framework, Yoast, or Rank Math is active (with a dismissible admin notice).
• Added ii_nnf_conflicting_seo filter.

2.0.0

• Per-post noindex and nofollow control, emitted through the core wp_robots filter.
• Search Robots meta box (two checkboxes) on public post types.
• Robots admin column showing the resulting state.
• Core sitemap exclusion for noindexed posts.
• ii_nnf_post_types filter.
• Supersedes the earlier noindex-only tool; adds nofollow, the Robots column, and core-sitemap exclusion.