Wordpress - No option to allow search engines to index my site in WP 4.3

Now, the setting for Search engine can be found under Settings > Reading

  • For staging site: Checkbox should be ticked
  • For Live site: Checkbox should be unticked

See image

enter image description here


This feature was changed in Wordpress 3.5 already and was moved from Privacy to Settings -> Reading. You where in all propability using a very old Wordpress version.

You now just have the option to discourage indexing by search engines

  • Checkbox ticked -> Search engines should not index your site, however this will not force search engines not to index the site

  • Checkbox unticked -> Search engines are allowed to index your site

So, in short, you don't have anything to worry about, your site will be indexed by default when the discourage checkbox is unticked