I'm facing an issue with my WordPress website where every external link on my pages is automatically assigned the rel='nofollow' attribute. This problem persists across various sections of my website, including widgets, menu links, and post links. Surprisingly, removing the rel='nofollow' tag doesn't resolve the issue.
Here are the steps I've taken to troubleshoot:
I deactivated all WordPress plugins. I switched to the default WordPress theme. Despite these actions, the problem persists. I also created a JavaScript script to remove the rel='nofollow' attribute from these links dynamically, but when I view the page source (right-click > view page source), the rel='nofollow' link is still present.
Additionally, I noticed that the meta tag in the header is set to meta name='robots' content='noindex,follow'. I'm running my WordPress site on an Ubuntu server and manage it through Plesk.
Could this issue be originating from my server or Plesk configuration? I would greatly appreciate any insights or solutions to resolve this issue.
Thank you for your assistance!
In Plesk you have the WP Toolkit, and there you have a setting under "Tools" where you can turn "Search engine indexing" on or off:
"If your website is not yet ready for public viewing, disable this option to make sure that search engines do not show your website in the list of search results. Disabling this option enables the "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" option in WordPress, which, in turn, adds the "noindex, nofollow" tags to your website's header and adds the Disallow directive to the virtual robots.txt file."