This document discusses three ways to block Google from indexing a WordPress site: 1) Modifying the robots.txt file to disallow indexing of the entire site. 2) Using the WordPress dashboard to discourage search engines from indexing the site. 3) Password protecting files and directories to prevent Google's web crawlers from accessing the content.

1. How to Block Google from Indexing your
WordPress Site

2. Why should you block Google?
● Site is in development
● In case, you personally don’t want some pages to get indexed.

3. How to block Google?
● Modifying robots.txt
● Within WordPress Admin
● Password protected files

4. Block Google By Modifying Robots.txt
1. Robots.txt file - Manually create and upload a simple robots.txt file to your website’s root directory.
It looks like - User-agent: *
Disallow: /

5. Using WordPress dashboard
❑ Go to ‘Settings’, select ‘Reading’, check the box next to
‘Search Engine Visibility’ that says ‘Discourage search engines.
Modifies robots.txt
Also adds <meta name='robots' content='noindex,follow' /> to your website’s header.

6. Password-protected files
▪ Web crawlers cannot access password-protected files.
▪ With cPanel access to manage your hosting account.
Steps involved-
i. Log in to your cPanel account and click on ‘Password Protect Directories

7. ii. Select the document root in the pop-up window and click ‘Go’;
iii. Select the folder where your WordPress is installed
iv. Check the box next to ‘Password protect this directory’
type in a name for the protected directory, and click on ‘Save’
v. Once you receive a success message, go back to create user
vi. Add a username and password, and click on ‘Add/modify authorized user’

9. For more information https://blogvault.net/how-to-block-google-from-indexing-your-wordpress-site/