Accidentally applying a sitewide noindex tag can remove the entire site from Google’s index.
- Add noindex/canonical/robots checks to release QA and migration QA; mark sitewide accidental noindex as `risk/avoid`.
Source record
@build_in_public
2025-11-01If you want to learn SEO things to avoid, pay attention. “Site migration completed, but we didn't tell the SEO team.” Fun fact, when Twitter migrated to X, they put in 302...
Source Text
iIt's Halloween. Scare an SEO with a single phrase. If you want to learn SEO things to avoid, pay attention.
Site migration completed, but we didn't tell the SEO team. Fun fact when Twitter migrated to X, they put in 3:02 redirects instead of 3:01 redirects, which didn't transfer any link juice. They lost billions of clicks because of this.
If you're doing a site migration, talk to an SEO. We went on a major disavow spree. Google has this thing called the disavow tool.
99% of the time it's used, it ends up in dramatically lost Google rankings and lost organic traffic. Everyone uses it incorrectly. Literally Google says step 0 decide if this is necessary.
Helpful content update this is indeed a scary one. This was caused by Google's helpful content update. Every content site I can think of has been obliterated.
This update took out a lot of websites. No index tag on the whole site. Believe it or not, some people just told Google to not index their entire site by accident.
Source Intelligence
iQuestions this source answers
iWhat is this source mainly about?
Accidentally applying a sitewide noindex tag can remove the entire site from Google’s index.
What should an operator take from it?
Add noindex/canonical/robots checks to release QA and migration QA; mark sitewide accidental noindex as `risk/avoid`.
Which topics does it connect to?
This source is connected to indexation / risk-avoid.
What public evidence supports the record?
It's Halloween. Scare an SEO with a single phrase. If you want to learn SEO things to avoid, pay attention. Site migration completed, but we didn't tell the SEO team. Fun fact when Twitter migrated to X, they put in 3:02 redirects instead of 3:01 redirects, which didn't transfer any link juice. They lost billions of clicks because of this...