Why isn't my website showing up on Google? How to find the cause in 20 minutes

The short answer

Type site:yourdomain.com into Google. If you see no results, Google hasn't indexed your site, and the cause is almost always technical: the site is brand new, something tells Google to stay away (a noindex tag, a robots.txt rule, a setting in your CMS), or Google can't reach the pages. If you do see your pages, you're indexed and the problem is ranking: the pages don't match what people search, give Google too little to work with, or compete with sites that have more reviews and links.

Google's own SEO Starter Guide puts it simply: if the site: search shows results pointing to your site, you're in the index. Below is the order we work through when a client tells us their site is “not on Google”.

Step 1: the 20-minute test

Search for your site with site:

Open Google in a private window and search site:yourdomain.com, without spaces and without https:// or www. Then read the results:

• No results at all. An indexing problem. Go to Step 2.
• Only the homepage, or a handful of old pages. Google knows the site but isn't picking up the rest. Usually a sitemap, internal links or thin pages. Also Step 2.
• Your pages are there. Indexing works. Go to Step 3.

The site: operator is a rough check, not a complete list, so don't worry if the count looks odd. What matters is whether the pages you care about appear.

Search the way your customers do

Next, search for your company name. Most businesses with an indexed site appear for their own name within days. Then search for what a customer would type, such as “roof repair Leeds” or “B2B packaging supplier Netherlands”. Showing up for your name but not for your service is a very common situation. It means Google has the site and doesn't consider it the best answer yet.

Open Google Search Console

If you haven't set it up, do it now. Search Console is free and shows what Google sees, not what you hope it sees. Add your site as a Domain property (it covers http, https, www and non-www in one go) and verify it with a DNS record at your domain registrar. Data starts collecting from the moment you verify, so the earlier the better. Setting up Search Console and Analytics is part of every launch we do, because without them a missing site is a guessing game.

Step 2: if Google hasn't indexed your site

Work through these in order. The first three are the quickest to rule out.

1. The site is simply new

A new domain can take days to a few weeks to appear. Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others can take several months. You can speed up discovery by submitting your sitemap in Search Console (usually /sitemap.xml) and by getting one or two links from places Google already crawls, such as your Google Business Profile, a directory or a partner's website.

2. Something tells Google to stay away

• A noindex tag left over from development. Sites are built on hidden staging addresses with noindex switched on, and sometimes that setting goes live with the site. Open your homepage, view the source (Ctrl+U or Cmd+Option+U) and search for noindex. If it's in a robots meta tag, that's your answer.
• The WordPress “Discourage search engines” box. It sits under Settings → Reading and does exactly what it says. Other builders have a similar switch, often called “hide from search engines”.
• A robots.txt rule. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt. If you see Disallow: / under User-agent: *, every crawler is told to keep out of the whole site.
• Password protection or a “coming soon” plugin that is still active.

3. Google can't reach or read the pages

• Pages return an error, or the server is so slow that crawling times out.
• The important text only exists inside images, PDFs or a script that builds the page in the browser. Put key information in normal HTML text.
• Several versions of the site exist (http and https, www and non-www) without redirects to one of them, so Google has to guess which one is real.
• A canonical tag points every page to the homepage, or to the old domain after a move.

4. Search Console says “not indexed”

The Pages report lists every URL Google knows and why it isn't indexed. Two statuses confuse people most:

• Discovered – currently not indexed: Google knows the URL but hasn't crawled it yet. Often a sign that the page has few internal links pointing to it.
• Crawled – currently not indexed: Google looked at the page and decided not to include it, for now. Usually the page is thin, very similar to another page, or adds little that isn't already elsewhere. Rewriting it with real, specific content works better than requesting indexing again.

For any single page, paste the address into the URL Inspection tool at the top of Search Console. It tells you whether the page is on Google, when it was last crawled, which canonical Google chose and whether anything blocks it.

5. A manual action (rare)

If someone bought spammy links or a hacked plugin injected pages, Google may have taken action against the site. Check Security & Manual Actions in Search Console. For an ordinary small-business site this is unusual, but it takes ten seconds to rule out.

Step 3: if you're indexed but nobody finds you

This is the more common problem and the slower one to fix. Google ranks pages, not websites, so look at it page by page.

No page matches the search

If you offer five services and describe them all in one paragraph on a “Services” page, Google has no good page to show for any of them. Give every main service its own page, and if you work in several cities, mention the areas you serve in normal sentences. A page about one thing for one kind of customer is easier to rank and easier to read.

Titles that say nothing

Look at your pages in the site: results. Titles like “Home”, “Services” or just the company name waste the most visible line you get in search. Google's advice is that a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise. “Roof repair in Leeds, same-week visits | Smith Roofing” tells a searcher and Google what the page is for.

Too little content to go on

Three sentences and a stock photo won't outrank a competitor who explains prices, process, timing and service area. You don't need long pages, you need pages that answer the questions a customer would ask on the phone.

Local searches run on your Google Business Profile

For “near me” and city searches, the map results often matter more than the website itself. Google says those results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence. An unverified or half-filled profile is one of the most common reasons a local business is invisible. We cover it step by step in our local SEO checklist.

Competitors simply have more trust

Reviews, links from other websites and mentions in local media all signal that a business is real and known. A site launched last month won't outrank a firm with ten years of reviews in a few weeks. That's normal and it improves with time, as long as the basics above are right.

You changed something and rankings dropped

If traffic fell after a redesign or a move to a new platform, look for missing redirects first. Old URLs that now return a 404 lose everything they had built up. Our website redesign checklist shows how to find and fix them.

What to check in Search Console, in order

If you'd rather not dig through it yourself, we look at it for you. Send us your address through our free website check and you get a short written list of what blocks your site in Google and what to fix first. A person does the check, not a tool, and there's no obligation.

What won't help

• Paying for Google Ads. Ads appear above the results, but they don't change where your site ranks organically.
• “Submit to 500 search engines” services. Google finds sites through links and sitemaps. Nobody needs to submit you anywhere.
• Repeating keywords. Writing “plumber Leeds” fifteen times makes the page worse to read, and Google lists keyword stuffing as a spam practice.
• Requesting indexing every day. One request after a real fix is enough. Repeating it doesn't move you up the queue.

How long until it works

After you fix an indexing block, expect pages to appear within days to a couple of weeks. Ranking improvements take longer: give content changes a few weeks before you judge them, which is also what Google recommends. Keep an eye on the Performance report rather than searching for yourself every morning, because your own results are influenced by location and history.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if my website is on Google?

Search Google for site:yourdomain.com. If your pages appear, they are indexed. For a reliable answer about a specific page, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console, which shows whether the page is on Google and why if it isn't.

How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google?

Usually from a few days to a few weeks for the site to be indexed. Submitting a sitemap in Search Console and getting a link from your Google Business Profile helps Google find it sooner. Ranking well for competitive searches takes longer, often months.

Why does my website show up for my company name but not for my services?

Because the site is indexed but no page is the best answer for those searches yet. Give each main service its own page with a clear title, answer the questions customers ask, and for local searches complete and verify your Google Business Profile.