Discourage search engines from indexing this site AFTER a site launch

[Juvo]

Hi,

I have unticked "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" a few months before the initial release of my website. I don't want to be found by search engines until the official release (still a few months left). Do you think that ticking this box again will harm the website's long-term ranking or have any repercussion on the website? Do you have any additional advice to avoid being temporarily ranked until the official release which won't harm the website in SERPs?

Thanks for your answers.

[TomRayner]

Hey there

Presume you're using WordPress here. From my past experience - no, that won't have a long-term detrimental effect on your site's ability to rank, once the site goes live.

If you're concerned, however, you could install a "construction" or "coming soon" page, which will allow the site to index, but prevent other URLs from being found/crawled (so long as you don't submit a sitemap until you're ready).

Seedprod's free plugin is highly recommended, and I've used it before to good effect: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/coming-soon/

Hope this helps.

[John.Moz.com]

I would just leave that box in wordpress checked off or use the meta robots noindex tags on all of your pages. When you want the site to be indexed remove the tags and fetch your pages in GSC.