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Set WordPress search-engine visibility

  1. Choose the intended servers and sites. Start with one installation.
  2. Select the sites whose visibility preference should change. Use Enable search-engine indexing to reverse it.
  3. Open Choose action → Bulk tools, search for search-engine, then choose Disable search-engine indexing.

Bulk tools search showing the paired search-engine indexing actions

Choose the intended enable or disable entry for the selected sites. Check the final result after confirmation. Select the image to view it full size; use your browser’s Back command to return.
  1. Review the action and targets, then confirm. Read every site’s final result, including skips. Finished can include failed sites; see Read the outcome.

This changes WordPress’s discourage-indexing preference. Clear relevant caches and inspect resulting pages. It does not restrict access or guarantee that search engines remove existing results.

Command-line method

Section titled “Command-line method”

From a root terminal on the server hosting the sites, discourage search-engine indexing:

Terminal window
cpfence --bulk-disable-search-engine-index

Review /var/log/cpfenceav/wp-sites-list.txt and the inventory/confirmation prompts first. Keep only the intended sites, such as staging installations. The command uses that server’s local list, not checked WebUI rows.

Restore indexing when ready:

Terminal window
cpfence --bulk-enable-search-engine-index

Read each site’s final output. Clear relevant caches so the visibility metadata updates, then inspect pages and WordPress’s visibility setting. This is a search preference, not a way to make staging private or a guarantee that existing search results disappear.