How hide / noindex a specific pdf file?

The advanced tab (gear icon) inside the Yoast SEO meta box on the edit screen of the item allows administrators and editors to set custom robots information like noindex, nofollow, and other advanced robots settings. Learn more here.

If the meta box doesn’t appear, please try the suggestions here: Yoast SEO meta box is missing

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Hi, can I re-open this? I used to be able to noindex media files like this: but now that option isn’t showing.

I tried all the solutions listed above, but I still can’t see Yoast edit screen. In any media file ‘Screen Options’ I see a lot of boxes I can tick (Discussion, Comments, Slug, author, and Easy Social Media Share Buttons), but not Yoast. It’s visible and enabled in Dashboard ‘Screen Options’, but not for media.

My question is – is this option still available on the most recent version of Yoast?

In Yoast Search Appearance/Taxonomies I only have the following options: Categories, Tags, Format, Portfolio Tags, and Portfolio Categories. Nothing related to Media files.

Any idea of how to enable Yoast settings screen to appear for images and pdfs in Media Library?

Thanks in advance for your help.

What settings do you have selected for media?

Admin > SEO > Search Appearance > Media (tab)

When the ‘Media & attachment URLs’ are set to redirect attachment URLs to the attachment itself, the Yoast SEO meta box is not available. This is because the meta box settings no longer apply since the URL is not accessible due to the redirect.

@jurgar If you have a similar issue and the above doesn’t answer your question, please open a new request. That way it’s easier to track issues and provide assistance. Thanks!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by amboutwe.

@amboutwe Thank you so much. That’s what it is, my settings for ‘Redirect attachment URLs to the attachment itself?’ are set to Yes, as it’s the recommended setting.
But I can’t remember changing it recently and the Yoast SEO meta box used to still be available.
Anyway, I temporarily set it to ‘No’, chose noindex for the files that I wanted and set it to ‘Yes’ again. Do you think this is ok and will keep those noindex settings for those files while not screwing up the rest of my gallery?

Thanks a lot for your help!
PS any idea if Yoast SEO is coming back even when the redirects are set to yes?

The metabox in the media section did not apply to files directly only to the attachment pages.

Let’s say you upload an files called item.pdf. WordPress uses the permalink structure to create a URL of https://example.com/item/, for example. This page displays your theme header, sidebar, and footer with the thumbnail linked to the file.

In most cases, you or your developer have not customized this page so it has little to no SEO value due to its thin content. This is why we recommend setting Redirect attachment URLs to the attachment itself? to ‘Yes’ to avoid these thin attachment pages from being indexed.

To prevent indexing of the actual file, this Google article may help (it uses images for the examples but the same idea can apply to any file type, like pdf): https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35308