# Can blocking a URL in robots.txt solve an indexation problem?

> Not reliably.

robots.txt controls whether a crawler may access the URL. It does not guarantee that Google forgets the URL.

Google may know a blocked URL from external links or other references and may show the URL without its content or snippet.

If the objective is to prevent a page from appearing in Search, Google recommends appropriate indexing controls such as noindex when the page can be crawled.

Therefore:

**robots.txt ≠ noindex**

and

**crawl prevention ≠ guaranteed index removal.**

## Sources

- [Google Search Central — Robots Txt Spec](https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/robots-txt/robots-txt-spec)

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Answered by Abhinav Krishna (https://www.theseocentral.com/author/abhinav-krishna)
Source: https://www.theseocentral.com/technical-seo-faq/can-blocking-a-url-in-robots-txt-solve-an-indexation-problem