Hostinger SEO: the AI Builder settings, the nofollow default and what Google ignores
What the SEO settings in Hostinger AI Builder do, what Hostinger handles for you, and which defaults to change, checked against Hostinger's help centre and Google's own documentation on 22 October 2026.
Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 22 October 2026
Hostinger SEO, for a site made with Hostinger AI Builder, comes down to one settings panel plus a few defaults: you set the meta title, meta description, URL and visibility of each page yourself, while Hostinger builds the sitemap and handles speed for you. Two settings deserve care. Every link you add is nofollow until you change it, so switch your internal links to follow. And the "keywords" field is not something Google reads, so put your effort into titles, headings and the text on the page. Then submit the sitemap in Google Search Console and check your pages in PageSpeed Insights.
Where the SEO settings live in Hostinger AI Builder
Hostinger's help centre, read on 22 October 2026, describes the SEO settings panel in the builder's manual mode. You reach it from SEO settings in the left sidebar, or by opening Pages and navigation, then a page's settings, then SEO settings. From there you can:
- set your business or brand name and the website's default language in the Overview section;
- add a meta title and meta description to each page;
- edit each page's URL;
- add keywords;
- hide a page from search engines.
Product pages in an online store have their own SEO settings, reached from the Online store panel, with the same fields. Image alt text is set in each image element, and text styles in the editor decide which text becomes an H1, H2 or H3.
What Hostinger does for you automatically
The sitemap. Hostinger says it configures the sitemap automatically and updates it every time you update the website. Once the site is published you can open it at your domain followed by /sitemap.xml. It is not submitted to Google for you, so add it in Search Console under Sitemaps. Hostinger's own note is that the URL should include www only if the www prefix is turned on in your website's general settings.
Speed. Hostinger says all website assets are served through the Cloudflare content delivery network and that uploaded visuals are optimised automatically, except GIFs. Its advice is to limit GIFs and keep integrations to the ones you need, because every extra piece of code has to load. Test with Google's PageSpeed Insights on both mobile and desktop. Google says its Core Web Vitals "are used by our ranking systems", with good thresholds of 2.5 seconds for Largest Contentful Paint, under 200 milliseconds for Interaction to Next Paint and under 0.1 for Cumulative Layout Shift.
Blog posts. Hostinger uses a blog post's title and description as its meta title and meta description automatically, so write those two fields with search in mind.
The settings to check against what Google actually says
| Setting in Hostinger | What Hostinger says | What Google's documentation says |
|---|---|---|
| Links on your site | All links you add use nofollow by default, and you can change each one | Use nofollow when you would rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl, the linked page. For links within your own site, Google points to robots.txt rules instead |
| Keywords field | The AI SEO Assistant suggests keywords and you pick three | The meta keywords tag "is not used by Google Search, and it has no effect on indexing and ranking at all" |
| Website language | Sets the HTML lang attribute, which helps search engines and screen readers | Google detects a page's language from its text and does not rely on the lang attribute. It still helps screen readers, so set it correctly |
| Hide page from search results | Adds a noindex tag to the page | noindex keeps the page out of Google's results once Google recrawls it |
| AI SEO Assistant titles and descriptions | Generated for you to review before applying | AI-written titles, meta descriptions and alt text need a manual fact check before publishing |
The nofollow default matters most. A menu link or button that points to your own services page with nofollow tells Google not to follow it. Open the link settings on your menu items, buttons and text links to your own pages and choose follow. Keep nofollow for paid links and for links to sites you do not want to vouch for.
Writing pages that rank on a Hostinger site
The builder gives you the controls. What decides rankings is the same on any platform:
- One clear topic per page. Use the words your buyers search for in the H1, the first paragraph and the meta title. Hostinger recommends meta titles of up to 60 characters and descriptions of up to 160, including spaces.
- Headings that follow the content. Hostinger advises one H1 at the top of each page, with H2 and H3 for sections. Choose the style in the editor so the code matches.
- Real substance. For product pages, Hostinger suggests adding extra sections with authentic content. Google has no preferred word count, so write until the buyer's question is answered.
- Alt text that describes the image. The product title becomes the main image's alt text by default. Change it when the photo shows something more specific.
Hostinger notes that new titles and descriptions show in browser tabs straight away but take longer to appear in search results, because Google has to recrawl the page. Google's own recrawl documentation says "Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks." If a page matters, request indexing for it in Search Console after you publish. Our comparison of website builders and platforms for SEO shows how these controls compare with other builders.
Hostinger's AI Visibility Checker is a different check
Hostinger also offers a free AI Visibility Checker, which we read on 22 October 2026. It runs more than 25 checks in seven categories, reading your homepage, robots.txt, sitemap and llms.txt the way an AI agent would, and gives an AI readiness score with fixes. Its own page says it "Checks whether AI can access and read your site. It doesn't track brand mentions in AI answers." That makes it a useful access test. Note that Google said in June 2026 that llms.txt is not needed for Google Search, though other services may read it.
Questions about Hostinger SEO
Is Hostinger AI Builder good for SEO?
It gives you the standard controls: titles, descriptions, URLs, noindex, alt text, headings, an automatic sitemap and a CDN. That is enough for most small sites. Rankings then depend on your content, your links and your competition.
Does Hostinger submit my sitemap to Google?
No. It creates and updates the sitemap at your domain followed by /sitemap.xml. You add that URL in Google Search Console under Sitemaps.
Should I fill in the keywords field?
It does no harm, but Google ignores the meta keywords tag. Spend the time on the meta title, the H1 and the words on the page.
Why are my internal links nofollow?
Hostinger sets every new link to nofollow by default. Change your links to your own pages to follow in each link's settings, so search engines follow them.
When can we judge whether our Hostinger site's SEO is working?
Watch Search Console for indexed pages, impressions and positions, and track enquiries or sales by page. Google's SEO Starter Guide suggests waiting a few weeks to assess the effect of a change, and the outcome depends on competition, your offer and your budget.
Readable by AI is not the same as recommended by AI
An access test answers whether an assistant can read your Hostinger site. A second question is whether ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity actually names your business when a buyer asks for what you sell, and which sources the answer leans on instead. AI Knows Us asks those buyer questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews and reports which businesses appear, so you can see where a well-built site still goes unmentioned.