How Google Advice Can Wreck Your SEO (And How to Avoid It)
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August 12, 2025
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5 mins read
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Before you risk your site’s health for a quick Google Merchant Center fix, here’s the breakdown you need to protect your rankings:
In this post, we'll explore:
- The common belief: “Following Google’s advice will keep your site healthy.”
- Why blindly following Google Merchant Center advice can lead to severe index bloat.
- Case study: 10K expected pages vs. 5 million indexed.
- Why robots.txt updates without technical SEO consultant often go wrong.
- How to fix Merchant Center crawl issues without triggering index bloat.
- Action plan to future-proof your e-commerce SEO.
The Trap No One Talks About
We’re taught to trust Google’s advice if we want to keep our e-commerce SEO healthy.
But here’s a painful truth: sometimes, following Google’s Merchant Center recommendations can quietly destroy your SEO.
That’s exactly what happened to a client we worked with. Their strong in-house marketing team followed Google’s instructions to fix a Merchant Center feed issue - only to wake up to 5 million indexed URLs instead of the 10,000 they expected.
Today, you’ll see how even experienced teams fall into this trap, why it happens, and exactly how to protect your site from index bloat while keeping your Google Shopping campaigns running.
What Is Index Bloat (And Why Should You Care)?
Index bloat happens when Google indexes far more pages than necessary - including thin, duplicate, or parameterized pages that don’t help your customers.
These often include layered navigation URLs, internal search pages, paginated content, and parameterized URLs that multiply into thousands of variations.
Index bloat dilutes your site’s authority, wastes crawl budget, and suppresses your important pages in search results.
If you want your important pages to rank, you need a clean, purposeful index.
The Hidden SEO Danger in Google Merchant Center Fixes
1. How It Starts: A Merchant Center Feed Error
Your team uploads a new Google Shopping feed and suddenly sees:
“Desktop page not crawlable due to robots.txt.”
“Allow Googlebot to crawl your site by removing disallow directives in your robots.txt.”
It feels like the right move. You follow it.
2. The “Fix” That Breaks Your SEO
By adding:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow:
you do fix the Google Merchant Center crawl error.
But in the process, you:
✅ Allow Googlebot to crawl your UTM-tagged marketing URLs.
❌ Also open all layered navigation, search pages, and parameterized URLs for crawling.
✅ Allow Googlebot to crawl your UTM-tagged marketing URLs.
❌ Also open all layered navigation, search pages, and parameterized URLs for crawling.
Result?
Your site explodes from 10,000 useful URLs to millions of thin, duplicate URLs in Google’s index.
3. Case Study: From 10K to 5 Million Indexed URLs
At IM Digital, we saw this happen to a large, well-managed e-commerce client.
In trying to fix a Merchant Center issue, they accidentally removed all disallow rules for Googlebot, leading to an uncontrolled crawl of:
- Filter combinations in layered navigation
- Parameterized URLs with minor variations
- Internal search and paginated URLs
The result was a massive index bloat that stalled their organic growth for over a year.
What You Should Do Instead
Following Google’s advice blindly is the trap.
Here’s how to fix Merchant Center crawl issues without destroying your SEO:
Retain Existing Disallow Rules
Keep your disallow directives in robots.txt to block layered navigation, internal search, and other irrelevant URLs.
Allow Only Necessary Marketing URLs
Add specific Allow directives for Googlebot to access your marketing URLs with UTM parameters.
For example:
Allow: /*?utm_source=google_shopping
Test Before Deploying
Use the robots.txt Tester tool to confirm that your marketing URLs are crawlable while unwanted pages remain blocked.
The Bigger Picture: Trust, But Verify
This specific advice from Google isn’t designed to protect your SEO - it’s meant to fix their systems so they can crawl your pages for ads, which is exactly what the mentioned help article was meant for.
- Always consult a technical SEO expert before changing your robots.txt.
- Ensure that fixing one problem doesn’t create a bigger one elsewhere.
- Keep your marketing URLs crawlable while maintaining a clean, controlled index.
Don’t Let a Fix Become a Failure
Index bloat isn’t just a technical issue; it’s a silent killer of your rankings, crawl budget, and organic growth.
Next time you receive a Merchant Center error:
- Pause.
- Consult an SEO expert.
- Protect your site while solving your ad issues.
Because fixing your Google Shopping campaigns should never cost you your organic visibility.
The nuanced challenges of e-commerce demand more than isolated fixes; they require strategic foresight. As this case illustrates, what seems like a simple solution can quietly undermine your site's organic growth if not approached with a holistic view.
At IM Digital, we empower industry leaders by building resilient, high-performing digital presences that align every technical decision with your long-term strategic objectives.
Don't let a quick fix become a costly setback for your visibility. If you're ready to transform complexity into clarity and ensure your digital foundation is built for enduring success, connect with us today.
Tea Pisac Beneš is an SEO Strategist at IM Digital, specializing in transforming eCommerce performance through advanced Technical SEO, CRO, and Google Ads strategies. With nearly a decade of experience, she expertly translates complex data into clear, actionable insights that drive significant improvements in online visibility, conversions, and profitability for our partners.
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