Search Engine Visibility robots meta vs Per-Product Visibility for pre-launch catalog control

Goal is to keep a WooCommerce shop non-indexable during pre-launch while still allowing direct product URLs to resolve for internal review.

Two documented controls exist. Settings > Reading > Search Engine Visibility adds a robots meta tag to discourage indexing of the shop front. Per-product Visibility settings allow Catalog, Search, or Both, which removes items from shop archives but leaves direct URLs accessible.

The constraint is avoiding accidental public discovery via search engines without breaking internal URL access, and accounting for possible overrides by SEO or cache plugins that may change header or meta output.

Decision points

Does Search Engine Visibility provide sufficient protection when third-party SEO plugins manage robots output? How does Per-product Visibility interact with REST API exposure of /wp/v2/products for unauthenticated callers? Which control is intended for temporary pre-launch hiding versus permanent catalog curation?