While this behaves differently from topic embeds, category-level indexing control is a basic SEO requirement for any modern CMS. There are several other Meta topics about this, and making it native would solve multiple use cases at once.
I might try to build a plugin using AI since Ruby isn’t my stack, but this really should be a native feature.
Regarding the missing records: we haven’t run any database commands or operations that could cause this. Also, republishing isn’t viable. We have nearly 50,000 posts, and we don’t even know which ones are affected. Fixing this would require complex API scripts to find, delete, and republish everything…