---
title: "Google Is Indexing Your .md Pages: Why It Happens and How to Fix It"
url: "https://plugpress.co/docs/waggle-troubleshooting-google-indexing-md-pages.md"
canonical: "https://plugpress.co/docs/waggle-troubleshooting-google-indexing-md-pages/"
published: "2026-07-28"
modified: "2026-07-28"
author: "Fahim"
tags:
  - "Waggle"
---

# Google Is Indexing Your .md Pages: Why It Happens and How to Fix It

What to do when Google Search Console shows your pages indexed twice — once as the normal page, once as its `.md` Markdown version.

## Google indexes both /my-post/ and /my-post.md

**Symptom.** Search Console's Pages report (or a `site:example.com` search) shows the same content indexed at two URLs: the normal page and a plain-text `.md` variant. Sometimes the `.md` version even appears in search results, showing raw Markdown to visitors.

**Why this happens.** Waggle publishes a Markdown version of every page (append `.md` to any URL) so AI assistants can read your content cleanly. In Waggle versions up to 1.0.0, those `.md` URLs were also listed in your XML sitemap, and the `.md` response relied on a `Link: rel="canonical"` header alone to tell search engines "the real page is the HTML one." Google treats a canonical header as a hint, not a rule — and treats a sitemap listing as a vote *for* indexing. With the two versions' content differing (Markdown vs. HTML), Google sided with the sitemap and indexed both.

**How to confirm.**

1. In Search Console, open **URL Inspection** and inspect any `.md` URL — if it says "URL is on Google," you're affected.
2. Or search Google for `site:example.com inurl:.md` and look for plain-text results.
3. Check what your site currently serves: `curl -sI https://example.com/some-post.md | grep -i 'x-robots-tag|link'` On a fixed site you'll see both `X-Robots-Tag: noindex` and the `Link: <…>; rel="canonical"` header. If `X-Robots-Tag` is missing, you're on the affected version.

**Fix.**

1. **Update Waggle** past 1.0.0. The update does two things at once: `.md` URLs leave your sitemap (it goes back to normal pages only), and every `.md` response sends `X-Robots-Tag: noindex`. AI assistants still find and read the Markdown — it stays listed in your `llms.txt`, and every page keeps its `<link rel="alternate">` pointer — but search engines are now explicitly told to drop it.
2. **Let Google clean itself up.** As Google recrawls each `.md` URL it sees the noindex and removes it from the index. This takes days to a few weeks depending on crawl rate. In Search Console the Pages report's "Excluded by 'noindex' tag" count will grow as the duplicates drain out — that's the fix working.
3. **For anything embarrassing right now**, use Search Console → **Removals** → New request with the `.md` URL (or the `.md` prefix) to hide it from results immediately while the recrawl catches up.
4. **Do not block `.md` in robots.txt.** It feels like the stronger move, but a blocked URL can stay in the index ("indexed, though blocked by robots.txt") because Google can no longer see the noindex. Let the noindex do its job — and blocking would also cut off the AI crawlers the Markdown exists for.

## Related guides

- [Machine files: llms.txt, Markdown, and pricing.md](/docs/waggle-machine-files/)
- [How AI bots find your Markdown pages](/docs/waggle-how-ai-bots-find-markdown-pages/)
- [Troubleshooting: a page has a .md version you didn't expect](/docs/waggle-troubleshooting-unexpected-md-pages/)