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Although SEO is surely a difficult road with many highs and lows, it is still a vital component for the expansion of online businesses. In the rapidly changing digital industry, what was successful yesterday might not be so today. We can prevent repeating others errors by learning from their mistakes. This post will serve as a guide for you on what to do and what not to do, whether you are a business owner, marketer, or simply interested in SEO.
We'll explore five real-world examples of where things went wrong, so you'll be better prepared for online success.

Linkedin
On May 3, 2020, LinkedIn suffered a shocking SEO incident that sent shockwaves across the digital landscape. A large portion of their content inexplicably disappeared from Google searches, leaving users bewildered. Zero results showed up when searching for site:www.linkedin.com, indicating that Google had stopped indexing LinkedIn's pages under the WWW subdomain.

For a short time, this hiccup had far-reaching consequences, affecting millions of web pages on the platform. As the SEO community speculated about the root cause, neither LinkedIn nor Google released any official statement, leaving the incident shrouded in uncertainty.

However, a plausible explanation emerged from a tweet from Google's John Mueller, which pointed the finger at LinkedIn itself. Deindexing may have been triggered when LinkedIn attempted to canonicalize its HTTP version to HTTPS using the Google Search Console removal tool. Sadly, this resulted in all other variants being removed, including HTTPS, WWW, and non-WWW versions.

In short, LinkedIn may have inadvertently erased its presence from Google's search results when attempting the transition to HTTPS. This emphasizes an important lesson for all website owners: using Google Search Console's URL removal tool to manage domain redirects is a prudent approach. Although this tool proves useful for temporarily blocking outdated or inappropriate content, it can produce unintended consequences if used carelessly.
For a fast and seamless transition to HTTPS, implementing a 301 redirect would have been a much wiser strategy. These redirects instruct search engines to treat the new HTTPS version as the permanent destination for the old HTTP URL, preserving the website's search rankings and organic traffic.

This incident serves as a poignant reminder of the important role of careful SEO management and the potential consequences of mishandling powerful tools. With prudent handling, businesses can ensure a seamless transition while protecting their hard-earned search visibility and user engagement.

Ryanair
Ryanair, best known for its social media presence, found itself dangerously close to a major SEO setback, all because of a seemingly innocuous change. On May 7, 2020, an amendment was made to their robots.txt file – a simple directive to disallow all website crawlers.

The robots.txt file serves as a vital component, instructing search engine crawlers on which sections of the website they should and should not access. In the case of Ryanair, this change prompted search engines to stop crawling the entire website. Although the results did not appear immediately, over time, Ryanair's organic visibility may have diminished.

This directive remained in effect for an astonishing 12 days, from May 7 to May 19.
Checking the Wayback Machine, we discovered that almost all of the contents of the robots.txt file had been deleted and altered to prevent crawling entirely. While the chances of an accidental update are minimal, no official statement was made, leaving us to wonder about the real intention behind the change.

Many theories emerged regarding the motive behind this action. Some speculated that Ryanair may have aimed to reduce its organic visibility to reduce bookings during the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Another theory suggests that a disgruntled former employee may be the culprit, seeking retribution after being fired. Yet, in the absence of an official explanation, the true motivation remains mysterious.

Fortunately, Ryanair escaped significant damage to its SEO visibility. According to Ahrefs data, there was no significant drop in their organic traffic during the period of the robots.txt file change. However, if the matter had not been noticed or taken care of, the situation could have turned serious.

This incident serves as a stark reminder that even the smallest elements of a website can have significant results. One of the oldest and most fragile components, the robots.txt file, can have seriously disruptive effects if mishandled.

For businesses, this near miss underscores the importance of vigilant monitoring and proactive measures to prevent similar SEO disasters. Quick detection and correction of such errors can protect the online visibility and overall performance of the website.
Asos
ASOS, a leading icon in the fashion industry, faced a major setback in its financial report for 2018-19, which saw an 87% decline in pre-tax profits. The drop from £29.9 million in August 2018 to £4 million in February 2019 exposed a glaring flaw in their SEO and organic search strategies.

While ASOS acknowledged that its strong existing customer base contributed to its growth, it faced difficulties in acquiring new customers. To address this issue, the brand launched 200 versions of its website, tailored for users based on their countries of origin, with the intention of catering to specific search queries and exploring untapped markets.

Although this initiative seemed promising, ASOS made critical mistakes that wreaked havoc on their SEO performance. The microsites they created resulted in duplicate content, cannibalization, and doorway pages, which had a detrimental effect on their search rankings. Additionally, ASOS made significant changes to the UX/UI of their website aimed at improving product rendering, but this had dire consequences – a staggering 12-second homepage load time. Such a long page load time, which far exceeds Google's recommended 2-second benchmark, inevitably leads to higher bounce rates, which further detrimentally affects ASOS's search engine rankings. Unfortunately, the site's organic traffic and organic keyword performance remained poor for nearly two years between 2017 and 2019.

To prevent this debacle, ASOS could have A/B split tested the site redesign with segments of their audience, which would have identified the issue with slow load times. However testing may have been done, carelessness with regard to SEO implications proved to be a big mistake.

Having a dedicated SEO team is indispensable for any thriving online business, as they serve as consultants, oversee technical aspects and implement new tools. However, just having an SEO team is not enough; Their expertise should be noted and acted upon. Fundamental SEO principles could have identified and resolved the difficulties ASOS faced.

Warner Bros.

Even entertainment giants like Warner Bros. are sensitive to the consequences of neglecting SEO in the dynamic arena of movie marketing. They learned a hard lesson when they released a new movie focused on the beloved DC character, Harley Quinn. Unfortunately, their failure to prioritize SEO resulted in a loss of over $16 million.

The film's initial title, "Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn's;, contained a serious flaw. By not placing Harley Quinn's name at the beginning of the title, Warner Bros. inadvertently created a problem. When users searched for 'Birds of Prey's the results directed them to a completely different category unrelated to the Warner Bros. film.

The root cause of this marketing debacle was neglect of SEO fundamentals. In this example, Warner Bros. failed to conduct proper keyword research and competitor analysis. They neglected to check what content was already ranking for their desired search query and did not assess their chances of outperforming competitors.
Ultimately, Warner Bros. admitted their mistake and changed the film's title due to's search expansion for ticket sites". The hard lesson they learned is quite clear: SEO is indispensable in the film industry too. There's a fine line between creative freedom and optimization, and like other businesses launching new products or services, it's essential to involve SEO experts in the process to avoid costly oversight.

Warner Bros's The experience underscores the importance of engaging in extensive research, strategic planning, and SEO experts to increase visibility and attract audiences to their offerings.

Toys R Us

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, SEO plays an integral role in the success of businesses, even the most established ones. A poignant example is the story of Toys R Us, a beloved brand that failed to understand the importance of proper domain management and redirects, leading to a disastrous collapse.

In 2009, amid the e-commerce boom, Toys R Us identified an opportunity and acquired the toys.com domain to compete in the online market. However, they
overlooked one important aspect – setting up proper 301 redirects from Toys.com to their primary domain, ToysRUs.com. As a result, when users searched for Toys.com, Google removed all indexes from its pages, effectively killing the newly acquired website.

By failing to execute the domain transition correctly, Toys R Us missed out on hundreds of thousands of potential users and sessions, as the organic traffic intended for Toys.com never reached the desired destination. Additionally, they missed the opportunity to strategically guide users to specific pages relevant to their search query, potentially increasing their conversion rates.

This oversight came back to haunt Toys R Us in 2018 when they faced financial difficulties and eventually went into administration. While other factors played a role, the lack of a strong digital strategy and SEO certainly contributed significantly to their demise.

Even in their recent attempts at a comeback, neglect of SEO continues to haunt Toys R Us. They had over 1000 broken backlinks, and the old site's main URL was not redirected, leading to a frustrating experience for users and search engines.

To make matters worse, the website's restructuring included a 302 redirect, signaling to search engines that the change was temporary. Google struggled to get the new pages selected and indexed on their new site, hindering their chances of rebuilding a strong online presence.

The cautionary tale of Toys R Us serves as a powerful reminder about the importance of proper SEO management for businesses. From domain acquisition to site restructuring, every step should be executed with SEO expertise to optimize visibility, traffic, and user experience.

conclusion

In the field of digital success, the power of SEO cannot be underestimated. These real-life stories are a reminder of the profound impact SEO can have on businesses both large and small. Their experiences highlight the importance of investing in SEO expertise and adopting strategic SEO practices.

If you want to avoid the same mistakes that have plagued these iconic brands, it is imperative to take action. Increase your understanding of SEO, engage experts, and make SEO an integral part of your digital strategy.