Why your website doesn't show up on Google (and how to fix it)

First, an idea that saves a lot of grief: «not showing up on Google» can mean two very different things, and they're fixed in different ways. Telling them apart is the first step.

Are you not indexed, or just not found?

They're different problems:

• You're not indexed. Google doesn't even have your site in its index. If it's not in the index, it can't show you for anything. It's the most serious case, but also the easiest to confirm.
• You're indexed, but not found. Google does have your pages, but it places you so low for what people search that it's as if you didn't exist. This is ranking, and it's a longer job.

The quick test: search Google for site:yourdomain.com (with your real domain). If no result shows up, you're not indexed. If your pages show up, you're in the index and what's failing is where it places you.

How to check it properly in two minutes

• Run the search site:yourdomain.com. See how many of your pages Google knows about.
• Search for the exact name of your business. If you don't even show up for your own brand, there's a serious problem with indexing or with competition over the name.
• Do it in an incognito window. Google personalises results by your history and location, and that misleads you: you might think you appear «first» just because you visit your own site every day.
• Register your site in Google Search Console (it's free). It's Google's official tool and it tells you in black and white whether your pages are indexed, which searches you appear for and what errors it finds.

The most common causes (and what to do about each)

1. The site is new

If you've just published, it's normal not to show up yet. Google needs to discover, crawl and index your pages, and that takes time. There's no fixed deadline, so be wary of anyone promising «first page in a week». What you can do: register the site in Search Console and submit your sitemap to speed up discovery.

2. A forgotten «noindex»

It's the quietest and most frequent cause of all. While a site is being built, a tag is usually added telling Google «don't index me» (in WordPress it's the «Discourage search engines» checkbox). If nobody removes it when the site goes live, your site stays invisible no matter how long you wait. Check that checkbox and make sure no page carries the noindex tag. It's by far the cheapest fault to fix and the one we find most often.

3. Google can't crawl it

Sometimes the site itself blocks the way with a badly configured robots.txt file, or the site relies so heavily on scripts that Google never gets to see the content. If the search engine can't read your pages, it doesn't understand them or place them. Search Console flags these blocks in its coverage report.

4. The site is slow or doesn't work well on mobile

Google values the phone experience and speed. A site that's slow to load or looks bad on mobile has a harder time ranking, and it also loses the visitor who does arrive. We cover it in the mistakes that stop a website from selling: slowness costs you rankings and sales at the same time.

5. There's no content that answers what people search for

If your site is a single page with a logo and a phone number, Google has little to index and few reasons to show you. To appear when someone searches for what you do, your pages have to say it clearly: what you do, where, for whom, with real text and not just images. Every page should answer a specific search.

6. You don't have a Google profile

If you're a business with local customers, a good part of your visibility isn't on the website but on the map. The Google profile (the Business profile) is what makes you show up in «near me» and on Google Maps. Without it, you miss the easiest local traffic. We go into it in how to show up on Google Maps.

7. The competition is better worked on

If you're indexed but show up on page five, it's not that Google «can't see you»: it's that others answer that search better. They have more content, better reviews, faster sites, or they've been around longer. There's no honest shortcut here: you work on ranking (SEO) steadily, and it shows over the medium term, not overnight.

What to check today, in order

If you only have a moment, do it in this order, from the most serious and cheapest to the slowest:

• Check the noindex and the «discourage search engines» checkbox. It's the fault that most often leaves an entire site invisible.
• Search site:yourdomain.com to find out if you're indexed.
• Register the site in Search Console and submit the sitemap.
• Check speed and mobile: that it loads fast and looks good on the phone.
• Make sure every page says in words what you do and where.
• Create or claim your Google profile if you have local customers.

When it makes sense to ask for help

The above you can do yourself, and it solves many cases. If you've already checked it and still don't show up, or if you don't know where to start, our web audit gives you a clear diagnosis of your site, free and with no sign-up: we tell you whether you're indexed, what's holding you back and what to check first, with what really moves the needle. And if you want to tackle it seriously, we work on it within SEO ranking.

A healthy warning: nobody serious guarantees you the top spot on Google. The algorithm can't be bought. What can be done is to build the technical base, the content and the profiles so that showing up is possible, and then measure it in Search Console. The rest are empty promises, and those come at a high price.