The process and method of collecting, analyzing, and storing data to ease the accurate retrieval of information from a website are known as search engine indexing. There are a couple of reasons for which one may prefer that search engines do not index or crawl their site. Whatever the reasons you hold are, this article will help outline steps on how you can deny search engines access to your sites.
What’s the need to stop search engines anyway?
If you are pondering on this question, we will outline some reasons as to why you may need to deny access.
If you are at the beginning of developing your web page and not yet ready for it to be displayed, you may want to hide it till it reaches perfection. Though in the beginning, you have not put up links; however, search engines can pick up specific contents, hence the need to keep it private until you are ready for its showcase. If it is at the early stage, you may be indexed under maintenance or construction mode, or worst still, your work could be liable to property theft
Also, WordPress sometimes could be used by some people to manage a project or for intranet. In this case, internal documents may need to be kept from public view and access.
Having outlined the above reasons, we will give a step-by-step approach to secure your WordPress site from search engine.
I. Using the In-built feature.
WordPress has an in-built feature that allows you to block search engines from accessing your sites. Here is how to enable it.
Go to the Admin area, click on settings, select the reading option. A box will open with an option for search engine visibility. By this is a box that says discourage search engines from indexing this site. Check the box and save your changes.
II. Protect your site using a password.
Depending on the WordPress hosting provider you are using, you may have access to manage your site using the control panel. You need to first log in to your control panel’s dashboard, go to the security section where you will find the icon for password protects directories, click on this icon. Once you click on this icon, you will get different folders. Choose the folder (the public_Html) you’ll install your WordPress. Enter a name and save. Next will be a page asking you to enter a username and password, after which you click the add or modify authorized user. See pictures below for this step.
III. Use of Plugin to password protect your WordPress.
WordPress Plugin can be installed to enable this function. There are arrays of Plugins that you can use. A simple search will give you a host of reliable ones as well. However, choose a Plugin that has recently been updated and then install it.
Written by Ogheneroyeme Fanama
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