What happened to the “search engines blocked” notification in WordPress 3.2?
WordPress site owners have an option under Settings > Privacy to keep their site open to visitors, but block search engines. Very handy when developing a site, or managing a private site that you don’t want the world to see, but you don’t want to have to deal with logins either.
We often use that setting on sites under development…and more than once forgot to open the site to search engines once the site was launched. Ouch.
Around WordPress 3.1, a handy feature was added where a line of text was added in the admin next to the name of the site saying “Search Engines Blocked” when search engines were, you guessed it, blocked. Like this:
For some reason, in WordPress 3.2 that notification line has disappeared. Here’s that same site, search engines still blocked, but upgraded to 3.2:
That notification was a life saver. Does anyone know where it went? And why it was taken away? I miss it and want it back. Sniff.
Category: News & Views
Its still there, just now it’s in the ‘Right Now’ box. Less obvious, I’ll give you, but they just moved it.
I’m sure someone will have a plugin for it soon
There were complaints about this change on WP.com as well.
It was convenient to have it in the header of the page, so that it appeared on all Dashboard pages, rather than being relegated to only the “Right Now” module.
BTW, there are changes afoot in the “Right Now” module as well.
Of course you have already set up a WordPress.com test account/blog as many of the changes to ORG are implemented on COM first. That’s why my blogs’ tagline is “Just another WordPress.com site proudly beta testing WordPress every day”.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/increase-visibility-of-search-engines-blocked-notification-in-32?replies=2
Quick way to get it to stand out a bit more if you’re interested
It’s very sad. I saw a plugin for it, but so silly to use a plugin for this… http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-engines-blocked-in-header/
Yes – I agree it is a nuisance that it was changed – I found it useful where it was
To think that we will have to have plugins or functions.php code to
1. Restore the size of the site name in the dashboard , why is it so small??
2. Re-place this search-engine blocked notice and
3. Put back the Network admin link, back outside the Howdy drop down box …
IMHO it is all unnecessary tampering and one cannot help thinking that there are far more interesting and more important changes that could be made that would benefit the community more ….
fully agree. When you get used to something you want to see right where you left it last time
Would be nice to find ‘extras’, not constant changes.
) So heads up!
Anyway, changes in WordPress don’t compare to Facebook changes, when you simply can’t catch up
And there were also complaints it was a nuisance showing up on every page.
Quick way to get it to stand out a bit more if you’re interested
If you’re smart, and I know you are
, you install Joost de Valk’s WordPress SEO plugin anyway and it will let you know you are in hiding mode for sure 
Every time WordPress makes changes I wonder what’s now?
When you have some experience with WordPress it’s not a big problem finding new things, making sure everything’s right. But for someone who is just starting it can be abit of pain. Undeveloped sites visible to search engines (making everyone laugh when they find your unfinished pages), developed sites hidden from search engines (when you forget to tick the right box), WP default settings changing all the time…