WordPress update causes issue with allowing Google Indexing

  • Resolved manatnatt

    (@manatnatt)


    4 years, 3 months ago

    Hi Team,

    I had WordPress Automatic Update turned on, so it updated the version on WordPress and the plugins (especially WP Private Content Plus)

    Private content plugin (intranet) had set as ‘off’ for Google Indexing in Yoast plugin.

    I did not notice any issues with the above plugin but after sometimes, it somehow set this plugin as ‘on’ for Google Indexing, and there are some critical/sensitive information leaked on Google Searches.

    Please let me know if anyone had encountered this, and if anything can be done to prevent this in the future?

    Is this also a bug?

    Thanks.

    Regards,

    MP

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Support Rumejan Barbarona

    (@onlyincebu)

    Hello @manatnatt!

    We haven’t seen a similar issue reported by another user since the WordPress 5.5 update. Can you please describe how you’ve done the following?

    Private content plugin (intranet) had set as ‘off’ for Google Indexing in Yoast plugin.

    Thread Starter manatnatt

    (@manatnatt)

    Hi @onlyincebu

    There is a plugin called WP Private Content Plus which allow you to block pages/posts from public facing and of course I have disallow the view/index on Google for those pages.

    But after updates, it somehow got those options to allow those private contents to be indexed in Google Searches.

    Hi @manatnatt,

    Thank you for your reply.

    We are not familiar with the specific plugin. We do see the plugin did not get recent updates that state that the plugin is fully WordPress 5.5 compatible. Their last update was 3 months ago and mentioned compatibility with WordPress 5.4.1.

    That being said, we are unsure if this is related to Yoast SEO. How does the plugin make the content private? Does it force people to log in or enter a password in order to see the content? If so, search engines should not be able to crawl or see the content on those pages.

    Thread Starter manatnatt

    (@manatnatt)

    Hi @jeroenrotty

    Yes, you are correct the “WP Private Content Plus” force users to login with login form, and password protected. In those pages that has the “WP Private Content Plus” enabled has all set the Yoast SEO for search engines to no view/crawl but after an update, it makes the view to yes.

    Have you come across this before?

    Is it a conflict between plugins?

    Hi @manatnatt,

    Thank you for your reply.

    Hmm, we’ve installed the plugin and activated the Enable Private Content Module in the plugin settings, we then protected a post so that only logged-in users are able to see the post. We also set the Yoast advanced settings to not be able to index the post. When doing so, we did see the noindex being present that Yoast outputs. When adding content and resaving the past, the noindex kept in place.

    We can’t really reproduce that it would change that value. In any way or form, as long as the page/post you made private requires someone to log in, Google and other search engines should never be able to find and crawl the content.

    Plugin Support devnihil

    (@devnihil)

    We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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