If you are new to WordPress or have recently setup a new WordPress blog you should check the privacy settings to make sure it’s visible. While doing a manual WordPress version 2.8.4 install recently I noticed a change in the default privacy setting.
The privacy setting currently has only had two options, one is to allow the blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers. The other option is to block search engines but allows normal visitors. When manually installing a new WordPress blog the privacy option is shown on the install page but is now set to block search engines by default. Choosing the correct option, which for most would be to allow the blog to be visible, can still be done when doing a manual install.
If you will be doing, or recently installed WordPress within your hosting account using Fantastico or Simple Scripts you may not have been presented with the option to choose the blog’s visibility. If this is the case it may be set to the current default to block the search engines. In any case, it doesn’t hurt to check your WordPress blogs privacy settings. Simply go to Settings, Privacy and choose the correct option for your WordPress blog.
Sometimes one simple little thing can make a big difference. In this case, there may be an unknown number of new WordPress bloggers out there not knowing their blog is hidden from the search engines. And then there are some aware that it is not getting crawled by the search engine bots but don’t know to change one little setting. I can’t believe the WordPress team will let this go for very long and will soon change the default setting back, I hope.
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