Out-of-Stock NoIndex Automator Documentation

    Overview

    Documentation for WebMe Out-of-Stock NoIndex Automator.

    User Documentation

    What the Plugin Does

    This plugin automatically applies noindex,follow to eligible WooCommerce products when they become out of stock, then restores the previous robots state when they come back in stock.

    Setup

    1. Activate plugin with WooCommerce active.
    2. Open WooCommerce > WebMe NoIndex Automator.
    3. Confirm the detected integration in the diagnostics table.
    4. Enable automation.
    5. Review exclusions and audit retention.
    6. Save settings.

    Settings

    SettingEffect
    Enable automationTurns stock-driven automation on or off
    Keep backorders indexableSkips products that allow backorders
    Excluded product IDsNever manage these products
    Excluded category IDsSkip products in matching categories
    Excluded tag IDsSkip products with matching tags
    Excluded product typesSkip chosen WooCommerce product types
    Audit retention (days)Stored setting only; current code does not yet run a cleanup job

    Manual Operations

    Preview Resync

    Runs a read-only scan of up to 500 products and variations, then stores:

    • products scanned
    • eligible count
    • excluded count
    • unknown products
    • noindex actions
    • restore actions
    • no-op actions
    • changed count

    Apply Resync

    Runs the same scan logic and applies current rules across eligible products. After the run, the plugin stores the last resync timestamp, active integration, and summary.

    Export Audit CSV

    Downloads the latest audit rows as CSV with timestamps, stock transitions, state transitions, integration label, source, and message.

    Diagnostics

    The admin page shows:

    • active integration
    • all supported integrations and storage format
    • last resync summary
    • saved restore states
    • audit table entries

    Expected SEO Behavior

    • Yoast sites: plugin toggles Yoast’s noindex field
    • Rank Math sites: plugin updates Rank Math robots array
    • Sites without either plugin: plugin stores internal fallback state and emits front-end robots meta for product pages it controls

    Current Limits

    • Resync is capped to 500 product IDs per run
    • No scheduled cleanup or background queue
    • No uninstall data eraser