HackerNews Accidentally Bans Google, Googlers Fix It Over Thanksgiving

Nov 28, 2011 - 8:59 am 3 by

Hacker News LogoOver Thanksgiving weekend, HackerNews noticed they didn't rank for the search term HackerNews anymore.

It turned out, HackerNews blocked all GoogleBot IPs with the exception of one.

PG, owner of Hacker News said, "A couple weeks ago I banned all Google crawler IPs except one. Crawlers are disproportionately bad for HN's performance because HN is optimized to serve recent stuff, which is usually in memory."

Clearly that was a mistake and shortly after, Google delisted a ton of HackerNews.

It is a good thing Googlers hang out at HackerNews. In fact, it is one of the cool places for Googlers to talk geek at.

So over Thanksgiving, prominent Googlers including Matt Cutts and Pierre Far who work directly on Google search - worked to get the site back into Google's index.

In any event, HackerNews is now ranking for their name now in Google.

Forum discussion at HackerNews.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 16, 2025

Jul 16, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Barely Indexed Sites Can Mean Google Isn't Convinced Of The Site Overall

Jul 16, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Expandable Summary Row (Fed vs Asset Metrics)

Jul 16, 2025 - 7:40 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Change History Ghost Users - AdWords Administrator

Jul 16, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Core Web Vitals Update In Search Console - Bug or Normal?

Jul 16, 2025 - 7:30 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Console Adds More 24 Hour Data Comparison Options

Jul 16, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google Boasts Scraper Detection In Revised Duplicate Content Policy