Can’t see your WordPress website in Google? Check this setting.
A trap for inexperienced WordPress users, the innocent looking ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site‘ checkbox can be search death for your website. If left turned on (ie a tick in the box as illustrated) Google will obediently not show your website in search results… Argghh!
So why have such a potentially dangerous setting in WordPress ? If your web dev is creating a new version of your site, they can turn this on and Google will leave the draft site alone while its being created/updated. …Someone just has to remember to turn it off when the site’s been cutover 😉