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Privacy Settings on Wordpress

by LarryC
6 replies
This is some very basic advice for WP users, along the lines of shutting off the parking brake before you start your car. I just started a new Wordpress blog and almost didn't bother to check the Privacy Settings. You choose between "Blog can be seen by everyone, etc." and "Block search engines." I'm not sure why anyone who puts up a blog would want the second option, but for some reason that was the default box that was checked when I went there. I changed it, of course.

The thing is, I almost didn't bother to look at Privacy Settings. If I recall, the default selection is usually Seen by Everyone. I was actually looking for something else and just looked in Privacy to check it out, and was relieved that I did. It's hard enough to get your blog recognized without blocking it in your own settings!
#privacy #settings #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author msafi
    I see that you're using HostGator. Do they provide a user panel with a wizard that installs WordPress for you?

    When you install WordPress manually, you have to go through one of the installation pages where you can specify your privacy options. With automated installations this is skipped. It happened to me, too, when I used GoDaddy.
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    • Profile picture of the author LarryC
      MSafi, With Hostgator, you install Wordpress through Fantastico. I thought this was a Wordpress setting though, and not peculiar to Hostgator, but I'm not sure about that.

      Tom, thanks for posting the video. I hadn't seen it. I didn't realize they changed this default setting. An important little detail!

      AdInventive, that makes sense. It's probably a good idea to wait until you have some content to make the blog public.
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      Content Writing, Ghostwriting, eBooks, editing, research.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Brite
    I made a video about this and posted it on the forum too... here it is again though to people who didn't see it first time!


    Tom Brite
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  • Profile picture of the author AdInventive
    I know that I like to have privacy settings turned on when I am initially building a site. I rather not have a search engine spider it until the content is up and the linking is correct.
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    My thoughts on Lateral Marketing Stategies.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    Originally Posted by LarryC

    The thing is, I almost didn't bother to look at Privacy Settings. If I recall, the default selection is usually Seen by Everyone. I was actually looking for something else and just looked in Privacy to check it out, and was relieved that I did. It's hard enough to get your blog recognized without blocking it in your own settings!
    The default selection usually IS to be seen by everyone. As I've explained in several other threads, a mistake was made by a coder who supplied a patch for an unrelated WordPress issue in the install.php file. This mistake caused the 'auto-checking' of the checkbox to go away.

    This only happened in versions 2.8.0 thru 2.8.4. It is fixed in the upcoming 2.8.5 release.
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    The 2nd Amendment, 1789 - The Original Homeland Security.

    Gun control means never having to say, "I missed you."

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  • Profile picture of the author reglice7
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author LarryC
      Just an update -after posting this thread I didn't follow my own advice! I had someone else build me a WP site. Everything looked good and I didn't even think to check this. A week later it occurred to me and, sure enough, it was set to block search engines.
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      Content Writing, Ghostwriting, eBooks, editing, research.
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