How to Fix Search Engine Visibility Blocked in WordPress

If you’ve received a critical SEO Critical in SureRank saying: “Search engine visibility is blocked in WordPress settings.”

This guide will help you understand why this happens and how to fix it,  no technical knowledge required.

What’s the Problem

WordPress has a built-in option that can discourage search engines from indexing your site. When this option is enabled:

• Google and other search engines will not crawl or index your site.
• SEO performance, traffic, and rankings will be affected.
• SureRank cannot analyze your site properly because search engines are blocked.
  

This setting is often enabled during site development or staging environments, but it should be turned off before your site goes live.

Why This Matters

• Site won’t appear in search results: No one will find your pages organically.
• SEO value is lost: Any content you create won’t contribute to your rankings.
• SureRank warnings: The plugin will continue to flag this as a critical issue until it is resolved.

Steps to Fix the Issue

Step 1 – Navigate to Reading Settings

1. From the dashboard, go to: Settings → Reading
2. Look for the section labeled: “Search Engine Visibility”

Step 2 – Uncheck the Block Option

• You will see a checkbox: “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”
• Uncheck the box to allow search engines to index your site.
• Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Step 3 – Verify with SureRank

• After making changes, Re-run Checks in SureRank.
• The warning should disappear. Search engine visibility is not blocked in WordPress settings.

Tips & Best Practices

• Always disable “Discourage search engines” before launching your website live.
• Keep staging or development sites blocked from search engines to avoid duplicate content issues.
• After enabling search engine visibility, allow a few days for Google to crawl and index your site.