General Settings
The site's identity, and the switch that decides whether search engines may index it.
The General tab holds the site's identity. It is also where you come back to the fields from the first screen of setup, which the wizard does not let you revisit.
Steps
Check the site name and language
Site name is internal — the label on your dashboard. Changing it affects nothing a visitor sees.
Site language declares what language your pages are in, which affects how they are indexed and whether browsers offer to translate them. It is not a translation setting.
Decide whether the site should be indexed
There is a site-wide switch for whether search engines may index the site.
This is the one to use while a site is still being built if you do not want a half-finished site appearing in search results. It is a request rather than access control — the pages are still reachable by anyone with the address.
Keep your search-engine defaults current
Default title and default description are the fallbacks for any page without its own. The default featured image is the fallback share image.
These are worth revisiting after the site has grown. A default written on day one often describes a narrower business than the one you now have.
Set the favicon
The favicon is the small square icon in a browser tab and on a phone's home screen. Your brand's icon logo is the natural choice.
Fill in the organisation details
Your organisation's name, legal name, email, phone, address, founding date and size are published as structured data for search engines — which is how a business can appear with its address and phone number rather than as a bare link.
Only enter what is accurate. Structured data contradicting your other listings is worse than none.
Save
Saving the General tab pushes the complete shell, so it is the most thorough save on the screen. The change is live immediately across every page.
Result
A correctly identified site, indexed or not according to your choice.
