Admin facing add site screen missing search engine visibility field

[imath]

When a user wants to add a new site on Multisite configs, they can use the site privacy radio buttons, see screenshot below:

/wp-signup.php

But when a super admin wants to add a new site, they have no way to choose this setting during site creation, they need to create a "public" site, then go into the Reading settings to eventually switch to hidden to search engines. In this particular case, a super admin has less power than a regular user :)

/wp-admin/network/site-new.php

The attached patch is adding these missing site privacy radio buttons to let a super admin decide whether a new site should be "public" or not.

patched /wp-admin/network/site-new.php

[abidhasan112]

Test Report

This report validates that the indicated patch addresses the issue.

Patch tested: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/attachment/ticket/56886/56886.patch

Environment

• OS: macOS 13.0
• Web Server: Nginx
• PHP: 8.1.9
• WordPress: 6.2-alpha-55080
• Browser: Chrome 108.0.5359.124
• Theme: Twenty Twenty-Three
• Active Plugins: No plugins activated

Actual Results

• ✅ Issue resolved with patch.

Additional Notes

I have tested the patch and it seems to be the radio buttons appeared as expected. But I'm not sure about the functionality about the search engine. How can I test it in the search engine, please let me know.

Supplemental Artifacts

Before:

After:

[peterwilsoncc]

If there is an E2E test suite that runs in multiste mode, it would be great if some tests could be added to ensure Allow search engines to index this site appears on the relevant page.

@ironprogrammer do you know if such a test suite exits?

https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/56886

[costdev]

The patch needs some updates.

• The markup has changed for this field. See ​the current markup on the install page. This includes hooks.
• The patch seems to be processing all of the $blog['meta'], which goes outside the scope of this ticket.
• intval() should be replaced with (int).
• wp_unslash() shouldn't be necessary here. It's being converted to an integer.

[ironprogrammer]

Replying to peterwilsoncc:

If there is an E2E test suite that runs in multiste mode, it would be great if some tests could be added to ensure Allow search engines to index this site appears on the relevant page.

@ironprogrammer do you know if such a test suite exits?

I don't believe there are any multisite E2E tests. A great idea though 😅

If this option is added to the multisite admin, could it be worded/designed to have better parity with the single site admin?

I realize the current patch is based on what is currently displayed to users on wp-signup.php, but "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" more accurately reflects this option. It would also simplify the interface if this was a checkbox, rather than radios.

[desrosj]

I think I'd argue that this is an enhancement and not a bug, but I don't feel strongly enough to change the type without others agreeing.

Even though the admin screen shows less to super admins than the front end form, I'm wondering if this was intentional. If I had to guess, I would say that these forms are both intentionally short. But if that conversation did occur, it was likely a really long time ago.

Regardless, it does make sense to me for both locations to match what is available.

[costdev]

This ticket was discussed during the bug scrub. There was agreement by myself, @hellofromTonya and @johnbillion that this is an enhancement, and should be moved to 6.3.

[johnbillion]

As discussed in the bug scrub, this is more of an enhancement than a bug so I'm bumping it to 6.3. I agree that adding this field to the screen mostly makes sense, but I wouldn't want to add too many fields as that's what the settings screens are for.

[oglekler]

@audrasjb could you please address the changes requested in #comment:6?

[audrasjb]

Given this enhancement still needs some work and as WP 6.3 beta 1 is going to be released in a couple days, let's move this to milestone 6.4.

[oglekler]

@imath and @audrasjb could you please address the changes requested in #comment:6?
There are not so many :)

[oglekler]

Because requested changes are not difficult, I am marking this as good first bug.

But we have 9 days until Beta 1 and if someone is interested to see this change in the 6.4, it needs to be done asap or the ticket will be rescheduled to 6.5.

[oglekler]

Because the patch needs a bit of work, and we are in two days before the Beta 1, I am moving this ticket into 6.5. It can go in trunk as soon as the patch will be ready and trunk open again after 6.4 will be branched out.

[sagargurnani]

Hello all, I am actively working on updating the latest patch.

[audrasjb]

As per today's bug scrub:
Moving to future release as no update has been proposed since the last punt from 6.4 to 6.5.