A user reported that their profile remained hidden to logged-out visitors despite unchecking the “Hide my public profile” option. essentialshoodiesau asked if this was due to settings for new accounts. awesomerobot confirmed that profiles are hidden for new users to prevent spam, and noted that all profiles include an X-Robots-Tag: noindex header to prevent search engine indexing.
Hi everyone, I’m new here. I unchecked “Hide my public profile” in Preferences → Profile, but when I open my profile URL in a logged-out browser window it still says “This user’s public profile is hidden.”
Is this expected for new accounts — for example, does the “hide new user profiles” setting keep profiles hidden until the account has posted or reached a higher trust level? If so, what unlocks public visibility?
Thanks!
You guessed it, it’s hidden for new users so someone can’t create a new account and fill in a URL or other information to create spam.
Regardless, all profiles at all levels get a X-Robots-Tag: noindex header, so they’re never linked by search engines anyway. Posting spam to user profiles on Discourse is a big waste of time.