Myth: "Tick 'discourage search engines' while building to stay private"

Myth: "Tick 'discourage search engines' while building to stay private"

Under Settings then Reading there's a box: "Discourage search engines from indexing this site." Indexing just means search engines list your pages so people can find them. Beginners tick it during setup, which is fine, then forget it forever.

Weeks later they wonder why Google shows nothing. The box is still on.

Worse, this checkbox is only a polite request. It does not truly hide your site, anyone with the link still sees it, so it's no real privacy either.

What to do:
— Tick it only while building, if you like
— The day you go live, untick it immediately
— For genuine privacy, use a password-protect plugin instead

In plain words: that box hides you from Google, not from people, and you must untick it at launch.