Google Search Advocate John Mueller provided detailed technical SEO feedback to a developer on Reddit who vibe coded a website in two days and launched it on Product Hunt.
The developer posted in r/vibecoding that they built a Bento Grid Generator for personal use, published it on Product Hunt, and received over 90 upvotes within two hours.
Mueller responded with specific technical issues affecting the site’s search visibility.
Mueller wrote:
“I love seeing vibe-coded sites, it’s cool to see new folks make useful & self-contained things for the web, I hope it works for you.
This is just a handful of the things I noticed here. I’ve seen similar things across many vibe-coded sites, so perhaps this is useful for others too.”
Mueller’s Technical Feedback
Mueller identified multiple issues with the site.
The homepage stores key content in a llms.txt JavaScript file. Mueller noted that Google doesn’t use this file, and he’s not aware of other search engines using it either.
Mueller wrote:
“Generally speaking, your homepage should have everything that people and bots need to understand what your site is about, what the value of your service / app / site is.”
He recommended adding a popup-welcome-div in HTML that includes the information to make it immediately available to bots.
For meta tags, Mueller said the site only needs title and description tags. The keywords, author, and robots meta tags provide no SEO benefit.
The site includes hreflang tags despite having just one language version. Mueller said these aren’t necessary for single-language sites.
Mueller flagged the JSON-LD structured data as ineffective, noting:
“Check out Google’s ‘Structured data markup that Google Search supports’ for the types supported by Google. I don’t think anyone else supports your structured data.”
He called the hidden h1 and h2 tags “cheap & useless.” Mueller suggested using a visible, dismissable banner in the HTML instead.
The robots.txt file contains unnecessary directives. Mueller recommended skipping the sitemap if it’s just one page.
Mueller suggested adding the domain to Search Console and making it easier for visitors to understand what the app or site does.
Setting Expectations
Mueller closed his feedback with realistic expectations about the impact of technical SEO fixes.
He said:
“Will you automatically get tons of traffic from just doing these things? No, definitely not. However, it makes it easier for search engines to understand your site, so that they could be sending you traffic from search.”
He noted that implementing these changes now sets you up for success later.
Mueller added:
“Doing these things sets you up well, so that you can focus more on the content & functionality, without needing to rework everything later on.”
The Vibe Coding Trade-Off
This exchange highlights a tension with vibe coding and search visibility.
The developer built a functional product that generated immediate user engagement. The site works, looks polished, and achieved success on Product Hunt within hours.
None of the flagged issues affects user experience. But every implementation choice Mueller criticized shares the same characteristic. It works for visitors while providing nothing to search engines.
Sites built for rapid launch can achieve product success without search visibility. But the technical debt adds up.
The fixes aren’t too challenging, but they require addressing issues that seemed fine when the goal was to ship fast rather than rank well.
Featured Image: Panchenko Vladimir/Shutterstock
