Let Google Index Blogger Label Pages: Turning Labels Into Real Category Pages

Labels are the category system that ships with Blogger, and by default Google keeps none of those pages in its index. This guide explains why that happens, how to open them up correctly without missing a step, and when you are better off leaving them closed.

Updated 26 July 2026  |  About 12 minutes  |  Level: intermediate

What a label page actually is

When you tag a post with a label such as Appliances, Blogger automatically builds a page listing every post carrying that label, at a URL shaped like this:

https://yourblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Appliances

That page behaves like the category page of any normal website: everything on one topic gathered in one place, so a reader interested in the subject can keep browsing. For a review blog or an affiliate blog, that is genuinely useful.

The catch is that Google does not keep this page in its index by default, no matter how many menus you link to it from. Search for it and you will not find it.

Why Google skips label pages

The reason is a small file called robots.txt, a sort of signpost at the front door of your site telling search engine crawlers where they may go. Blogger ships with this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /

The line Disallow: /search means stay out of anything starting with /search. That covers both keyword searches (/search?q=…) and label pages (/search/label/…), because they live under the same path.

Google set that default because a site's internal search results are usually duplicate content with no value in search, and letting crawlers wander through them just burns crawl budget. The side effect is that genuinely useful label pages get swept up in the same rule.

The mistake almost everyone makes

This is why people flip the switch in a theme builder, upload the new theme, wait a month, and still see no label pages in Google. They only did half the job.

Think of it this way. Writing index,follow into the theme is like hanging a Welcome sign in your living room. robots.txt is the front gate. If the gate is locked, nobody ever gets far enough inside to read the sign.

Before you open anything: one post, one label

This matters more than it sounds, and it belongs before you flip the switch.

Say your post "Air fryer review" carries three labels: Appliances, Kitchen and Reviews. Blogger will build three category pages, each containing that same post:

/search/label/Appliances  → contains this post
/search/label/Kitchen     → contains this post
/search/label/Reviews     → contains this post

Index all of them and you have handed Google three near-identical pages to judge. That is duplicate content. Google has to pick one and ignore the rest, and sometimes those pages end up competing with the actual post for the same query.

The right approach is one primary label per post. Treat labels like shelves in a shop: an item sits on exactly one shelf. If you want people to find it from several angles, use in-article links or a related posts section instead.

How to tidy your labels

1. Open Blogger and look at the full list of labels you currently have.
2. Merge labels that mean the same thing. Reviews, Product reviews and review should end up as one name.
3. Aim for at least five posts per label. A label holding a single post is too thin to be worth indexing.
4. Go back through older posts and cut each one down to a single primary label.
5. Name labels the way people actually search. Home appliances beats Electrical.

Turning it on, in order

Step 1: flip the switch in BlogKub

There are two places to do this and they are the same value, so it makes no difference which one you use. The other view updates immediately.

• The SEO panel, under the "Labels" heading, is where you will find Allow label pages to be indexed.
• The product category menu settings on the review template carry the same switch inside the warning box.

Once it is on, that box turns from amber to green and reminds you about the step that is left.

Step 2: export the theme and upload it to Blogger

1. Click Export XML in the top right.
2. Click Download .xml.
3. Go to Blogger.com and pick your blog.
4. In the left menu choose Theme, then click the ▾ arrow next to the Customise button.
5. Choose Restore and select the .xml file you downloaded.
6. Click Upload.

Your theme now marks label pages index,follow, but nothing will happen until step 3.

Step 3: paste the robots.txt (do not skip this)

In the same Export window, click the 📖 Guide button. You will find a robots.txt box that BlogKub generated to match your switch. It looks like this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search?q=
Disallow: /search/label/*?
Allow: /search/label/
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://yourblog.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml

Line by line:

• Disallow: /search?q= still keeps crawlers out of keyword search results, which really are duplicate content and should not be indexed.
• Disallow: /search/label/*? keeps them out of label pages carrying parameters, such as pagination or sort variants, so you do not end up with several copies of one list.
• Allow: /search/label/ lets crawlers into the label pages themselves. This is the line that does the work.

Copy the whole box, then in Blogger:

1. Open Blogger and select your blog.
2. In the left menu choose Settings.
3. Scroll down to Crawlers and indexing.
4. Turn on Enable custom robots.txt.
5. Click Custom robots.txt and paste what you copied.
6. Click Save.

Step 4: tell Google there is something new

Optional, but it speeds things up considerably.

1. Open Google Search Console.
2. Paste a label page URL into the URL Inspection box at the top.
3. If it reports "URL is not on Google", click Request indexing.
4. Repeat for each of your main labels.

How to check it actually worked

Check robots.txt

Open this in a browser, with your own blog name:

https://yourblog.blogspot.com/robots.txt

You should see Allow: /search/label/, and you should not see a bare Disallow: /search line. If that line is still there, the save did not go through or you appended instead of replacing.

Check the meta robots tag

Open one of your label pages, right click, choose View page source, and search for robots. You want to see:

<meta content='index,follow,max-image-preview:large' name='robots'/>

Still seeing noindex means the theme upload did not take, or you exported before flipping the switch.

Check in Search Console

Run URL Inspection and look at two lines:

• Crawl allowed must say Yes.
• Indexing allowed must say Yes.

If the first says no, robots.txt is still blocking. If the first says yes but the second says no, the theme is still sending noindex.

Check by searching

Type this into Google:

site:yourblog.blogspot.com/search/label/

Results appearing means it worked.

When you should leave it off

This feature does not suit every blog. Keep it off if any of these describe you.

• New blog, few posts. With one or two posts per label the category pages are painfully thin, and feeding Google a pile of thin pages helps nobody.
• Labels not tidied yet. If most posts still carry several labels you are about to publish a lot of duplicate content, which costs more than it earns.
• Careless label names such as test, other or uncategorised. Nobody searches for those.
• A personal blog you are not optimising. Leaving it off is simpler and safer.

The safer route for a young blog is to build a real page per category, write two or three paragraphs introducing the topic, and link to the posts in it. That gives you a page with content of its own, which Google will index without you touching robots.txt at all. In BlogKub's product category menu settings you can set any row's link type to "Page" and point it there.

Changing your mind later

1. Turn Allow label pages to be indexed back off in BlogKub.
2. Export the XML again and upload it to Blogger.
3. Copy the regenerated robots.txt, which goes back to Disallow: /search, and paste it over the old one.

Google drops the label pages from its index over the following few weeks by itself. Nothing else to do.

Frequently asked questions

Is the BlogKub switch enough on its own?

No. It only writes a meta robots tag into the theme, while Blogger's default robots.txt still forbids crawlers from entering /search, and robots.txt wins. You always have to paste the new robots.txt as well.

Why one post per label?

A post carrying three labels puts the same content on three category pages, which is duplicate content competing with itself and sometimes with the post it came from.

Should a brand new blog turn this on?

No. If each label holds fewer than five posts the category pages are too thin to be worth indexing. Wait until you have the content.

Can I turn it back off later?

Yes. Turn the switch off, export again, and paste the blocking robots.txt back. Google drops the pages over the following weeks.

How long does it take to show up?

Usually several days to a few weeks, depending on how often Google crawls your blog. Request indexing in Search Console to hurry it along.

Will label pages compete with my posts?

They can, if the category page overlaps too heavily with a single post. Follow the one post one label rule and keep several posts per label, and the two end up doing different jobs: the category page answers broad queries, the post answers specific ones.

Summary

Indexing label pages is worth doing on a blog with a reasonable amount of content and tidy categories. Three things to remember:

1. Tidy the labels first. One label per post, and enough posts per label.
2. The switch and the robots.txt go together. Either one alone does nothing.
3. Always verify in Search Console rather than assuming it worked.

If your blog is still young, build a page per category instead. It performs better and carries none of the duplicate content risk.