When building a new website on Magento 2 the following settings are critical to be configured properly at the start of the process:

  • Configure the Robots.txt file to "NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW"
  • Enable "Use Web Server Rewrites"
  • Enable "Single Store Mode" if applicable
  • Remove the ".html" suffix from product and category urls
  • Change Magento Admin Passwords to NEVER expire


How to Configure the Robots.txt file to "NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW"


When developing a new Magento 2 website it is VERY important to prevent customers and SEO crawlers like Google and Bing from visiting your website.


To accomplish this the following settings need to be changed in the Magento Admin:


Magento Admin > Stores > Configuration



General > Design > Search Engine Robots


If necessary, uncheck "Use system value" and change Default Robots to NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW




Don't forget to change this setting back to "INDEX, FOLLOW" when your site is ready to go live!


How to enable "Use Web Server Rewrites"


  • Stores>Configuration
    • General>Web



How to enable "Enable Single Store Mode"


If your Magento installation has only a single store and store view, you can simplify the display by turning off all store view options and scope indicators


  • Stores>Configuration
    • General>General

How to remove the .html suffix from product and category urls


  • Stores>Configuration
    • Catalog>Catalog


How to configure Magento Admin Passwords to NEVER Expire

The Commerce5 Integration authenticates with Magento 2 using the REST API. The token that is issued by the REST API is based on the Magento Admin Credentials, so if the Magento Admin Credentials expire then the token that is used for the Commerce5 integration is invalidated.


The following steps will configure the Magento Admin password to NEVER expire which will allow the Commerce5 connection to never expire.

  • Stores>Configuration
    • Advanced>Admin
  • Set Password Lifetime = 0