What is nosnippet?

nosnippet is a rule you put in a page's robots meta tag or in an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header. Google defines it in one line: "Do not show a text snippet or video preview in the search results for this page" (Google Search Central, read 1 November 2026).

The tag looks like this: `<meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">`. The page can still be indexed and still show up with its title and link. It just shows no text under the link.

Does nosnippet keep you out of AI Overviews?

Yes, according to Google. The same page says nosnippet "applies to all forms of search results (at Google: web search, Google Images, Discover, AI Overviews, AI Mode)" and "will also prevent the content from being used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode" (Google Search Central).

Google's page on AI features lists nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex as the controls "to limit the information shown from your pages in Search" (Google Search Central). It also says a page must be "eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet" to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews.

Google-Extended is a different control. Google says it "does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal in Google Search" (Google). It covers training of future Gemini models and grounding in Gemini Apps and Vertex AI, not AI Overviews.

Other search engines and AI assistants have their own rules, so check each one.

Why does nosnippet matter for B2B SaaS?

For most B2B SaaS pages, nosnippet costs more than it saves. It removes the text that makes people click in normal results, and it removes the page from the source links in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Those links are where buyers now see which vendors and lists an answer drew on.

It can make sense for a few pages: a paid report you only want people to read on your site, or text that goes stale fast and that you do not want quoted out of context.

nosnippet vs data-nosnippet vs max-snippet

  • nosnippet: no snippet for the whole page, in normal results and in Google's AI features.
  • data-nosnippet: an HTML attribute for part of a page. Google says "You can designate textual parts of an HTML page not to be used as a snippet."
  • max-snippet:[number]: caps the snippet length. Google says it "will also limit how much of the content may be used as a direct input for AI Overviews and AI Mode."
  • noindex: takes the page out of Google Search completely.

On featured snippets, Google's own page says nosnippet blocks both featured and regular snippets. If a page has both nosnippet and data-nosnippet, "nosnippet takes priority". A low max-snippet value "doesn't guarantee that Google will stop showing featured snippets" (Google Search Central).

What does that look like? (hypothetical example)

A hypothetical example: an HR software company has a long guide to payroll rules. One table lists fees that change every quarter. The team wraps that table in a div with data-nosnippet, so an old fee is less likely to be quoted in a snippet or an AI Overview. The rest of the guide stays open. Putting nosnippet on the whole page would have taken the guide out of AI Overview source links.

How does nosnippet relate to robots.txt?

robots.txt controls crawling. nosnippet controls what is shown. They do not mix well: Google says that if a page is blocked in robots.txt, its indexing and serving rules "will not be found and will therefore be ignored" (Google Search Central). So a crawler must be allowed to fetch the page to see nosnippet.

One more point: nosnippet on your own site does not stop other sites that write about you, such as third-party "best X" lists, from being quoted. For how sources end up in AI answers, see our guide to LLM SEO.