11 Unofficial Laws of Websites, Nobody Tells You About
Nobody tells you this when you start a business. You press publish on your shiny new website, expecting it to be like a tidy brochure and instead, it starts behaving like a teenager with keys to the car. You think you’re in charge, until your thank you page shows up on page eight of Bing, waving back at you like it’s got a side hustle.
That’s how I stumbled across what I now call the Unofficial Laws of Websites. They’re not in any manual. They’re not in the five-step guides to your dream site. Maybe they are, and someone did tell me once but I wasn’t in the headspace to take it in. I may have read it years ago and promptly forgot. Either way, these things landed like brand new discoveries when I tripped over them, the kind of website mistakes to avoid that quietly build up over time. That’s why I’m sharing them here, so you don’t have to learn them the hard way.
Here are my top Website Mistakes to Avoid
Law #1: If It’s Live, It’s Public
I thought my thank you page was safe. You know, the one you only see after you’ve paid or signed up. Well, apparently not. There it was, happily indexed on Bing, sitting on page 8 like it had slipped out the back door, strolled off the shelf, past the till, and left the shop without paying.
All because I hadn’t ticked one tiny box: noindex. This is what prompted the 11 unofficial laws of websites blog.
Lesson? There’s no such thing as “no one will find it if I don’t link to it.” Bots are nosy. They’ll find it. They don’t knock. Unless you explicitly say, not for you, search engines will treat every live page like it’s fair game.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: Mark thank you pages, freebies, and test funnels as noindex. Otherwise, they’ll be doing their own PR tour without you.
Law #2: Background Images Don’t Count
That beautiful Canva banner at the top of your page might look perfect to human eyes. To Google, it’s invisible wallpaper if it has been set as a background. Search engines only see images properly when they are added as images, not as backgrounds through a theme or builder. Even if you type alt text into a design panel, it doesn’t attach in the way you think it does.
I learned this the hard way when my blogs showed up in search with neat little image previews but my homepage turned up bare. Bots couldn’t see the big design image I had proudly put there because it wasn’t coded as an image, it was coded as decoration.
Lesson? If you want an image to count for search, add it as an image with proper alt text. Keep the background version for style if you like, but give the bots something real to cling to.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: upload a clear image near the top of your page, set alt text that describes your business, and let the search engines have something they can index.
Law #3: Test Pages Never Die
That test form you made months ago to check a funnel. The one you thought you deleted or forgot existed. Chances are it’s still there, quietly humming away in the background. Search engines love these. They don’t know it’s a practice run, they just see a live page. Which is how I ended up with a test page from January 2024 still sitting in Bing, perfectly indexable and ready for anyone to stumble across. This was another Website Mistakes to Avoid easily had I not forgot about it.
Lesson? Bots don’t care if it was for practice. If it’s live, they’ll add it. Which means someone could find it and get content you never meant to give away.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: once you’re done testing, delete the page or mark it noindex. Otherwise your throwaway experiments will outlive your actual launches.
Law #4: WordPress Creates Pages You Didn’t Ask For
I thought I had a handle on what pages were live on my site. The ones I had published, the ones I had drafted, the ones I had hidden. Then I found out WordPress quietly creates archive pages for every category you use on your blog.
Like/category/marketing/ or /category/business-tips/.
These pages sit there live, happily indexable, and showing up in search results whether you want them to or not. Sometimes that’s handy, like a mini library of related posts. Sometimes it’s bare and messy, like inviting people into your house and only showing them the contents of your kitchen cupboards.
Lesson? WordPress doesn’t ask before it builds these pages. It just does it. Which means you have a choice to make: style them up and use them as content hubs, or tell Google to ignore them with noindex.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: check what category and archive pages your site is generating. Decide if you want them public or private. Don’t let WordPress make the decision for you.
Law #5: Unlisted Still Means Listed
I used to think if I didn’t link to a page anywhere no one could find it. That is not how it works. Search engines don’t need your menu to navigate. They’ll find anything that’s live through redirects, stray links, or simply crawling your site structure.
That “secret” freebie page. The test version of a funnel. Even a redirect from PayPal. They all act like breadcrumbs for bots. Which means if it’s live, it’s findable.
Lesson? Privacy by obscurity is a myth. If you don’t want it public, you have to say so.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: mark hidden pages noindex. Don’t assume no one will find them. The bots will.
Law #6: Search Engines Work on Their Own Timetable
You fix something and breathe a sigh of relief. Then you check Google or Bing and it still looks broken. That’s because search engines update in their own time. Sometimes it’s days, sometimes weeks.
That thank you page might hang around in results even after you’ve noindexed it. Your homepage might still appear without an image even though you’ve added one. Test pages can linger like ghosts until the next crawl.
Lesson? Don’t panic if the change doesn’t show straight away. Search engines are slow and inconsistent. It doesn’t mean you’ve done it wrong.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: give it time, or use Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools to request a fresh crawl.
Law #7: Your Site Has Secret Dashboards
We all know about Google My Business. Some of us know Bing has its own version called Bing Places. What most people don’t know is that your site also has secret dashboards. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
These show you what pages are indexed, what errors are blocking you, and what search terms people are finding you with. Best bit, you can ask Google or Bing to reindex your site when you make a change instead of waiting weeks for it to happen naturally.
Lesson? These tools aren’t just for SEO geeks. They’re basic survival for anyone running a website.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. It takes minutes and saves you days of confusion.
I thought my tidy navigation bars were how everyone moved around my site. I even built two menus, a primary and a secondary, to make things easier for visitors. Bots don’t care. They don’t click menus. They crawl every link they can find. That means the old link in your footer, the button on a test page, even PayPal redirects. They’ll follow them all.
I was also told that it is better to give everything its own page rather than cramming too much onto one. That way the bots can see and eat it all up more easily. Customers like the tidy menus, but bots will always be nosy regardless of your navigation structure.
Lesson? Bots don’t respect your layout. They’ll find what you forgot existed.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: keep an eye on stray links. Clear out old buttons, hidden pages, and redirects you no longer use. Structure your content for humans, but remember that bots will still crawl everything that is live.
Law #9: Websites Get Cluttered Like Cupboards
Websites don’t stay neat. You install plugins, create draft pages, try out new tools. Before long your site is creaking under the weight of clutter. The more mess, the more chance of slow loading, security gaps, and glitches.
Lesson? Your site needs decluttering the same way your cupboards do. If you don’t use it, lose it.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: delete old plugins, clear drafts you don’t need, and keep your site lean.
Law #10: Keep an Eye on the Customer Journey
It isn’t just about keeping the back end tidy. The customer journey is always shifting too. What worked for visitors six months ago might feel clunky today. Buttons move, habits change, and expectations grow.
Lesson? Don’t assume the customer journey is fixed. Stop waiting for the perfect flow. Make small changes, test them, and see what actually works. That is how you stand out.
Fix: Set time aside monthly for a quick review. Click through your site as if you were a brand new visitor. Notice where things feel smooth and where they trip you up. Small tweaks here make a big difference.
Law #11: Websites Are Never Finished
Every time you fix one thing, two more turn up wearing party hats. You never really reach the mythical “done.” But that’s not failure, that’s the nature of websites. They grow, they break, they evolve.
Lesson? Stop waiting for perfect. Aim for progress and maintenance. A working site that improves over time beats a polished site that never gets launched.
website mistakes to avoid Fix: accept that your site is a work in progress. Try to set aside time once a month for a once over. Click through as a customer, spot the snags, and keep moving forward. Progress and small tweaks will set you apart.
Final Word on the website mistakes to avoid
People often say don’t leave money on the table. With websites it can be worse. If your thank you page is public, that is money walking straight out the door. It happens. We learn, we fix, and we move on.
For context, my site runs on WordPress with Divi, so some of these examples come from there. The general lessons apply no matter what builder you use, but I am sharing only from what I have tested myself. I’m not taking responsibility for anyone else’s mistakes.
Vicky Etherington, known to many as The Website Mentor, has helped countless business owners navigate the digital maze. She taught me plenty, even if I didn’t always take it in at the time. Over time I have also grown a bit of a passion for tinkering with my own site. What once felt frustrating now feels fulfilling, because every time I dive back in I learn something new. Now that I’m refreshing and rebranding page by page, I’m discovering all sorts of things that make sense only because of that foundation. Sometimes you need to revisit what you learned before for it to land.
The best thing you can do is check yourself on Google or Bing. See how you show up and if your website mistakes can be avoided . Visibility matters and you might find surprises hiding on page eight. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and we all learn by them. Nothing is a failure, it is always a lesson.
There are lots of other website mentors out there. And just to end on a light note, no thank you pages were harmed in the making of this blog, only my pride.
