Search Engine Snitch

Search Engine Snitch is a lightweight WordPress plugin that monitors your site’s search engine visibility settings. If you accidentally (or intentionally) block search engines from indexing your site, this plugin will send you email alerts to notify you of the change.

Key Features:

• Real-time Monitoring: Continuously monitors your site’s “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” setting
• Email Notifications: Sends alerts when search engine visibility is disabled
• Admin Bar Indicator: Shows current visibility status directly in the WordPress admin bar
• Customizable Frequency: Choose how often to check visibility (Daily, Weekly, Monthly)
• Custom Email: Set custom email addresses for notifications
• Cron-based Checks: Uses WordPress cron for scheduled checks (no performance impact)
• Lightweight: Minimal code footprint, no external dependencies

Why Use Search Engine Snitch?

Accidentally blocking search engines can have serious consequences for your website’s SEO and traffic. Common scenarios include:

• Developers disabling visibility during maintenance and forgetting to re-enable it
• Accidental changes by multiple team members
• Plugin conflicts that modify visibility settings
• Testing environments affecting production settings

Search Engine Snitch acts as a safety net, ensuring you’re always aware of your site’s search engine visibility status.

Roadmap

• Multiple email recipients
• Visibility history log
• Instant checks (not just scheduled)
• Multisite support

Privacy

This plugin does not:
* Collect any personal data
* Track users
* Send data to external servers
* Store information beyond plugin settings

All data remains on your WordPress installation. The only external communication is the email notification when triggered.

License

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License v2 for more details.