Why isn't my website showing on Google? How to check and what to do

Not showing up and showing up too low are different problems

"My website doesn't show up on Google" can mean two very different things:

• Google doesn't have your website. It doesn't appear even when you search for your exact name. That's an indexing problem: Google hasn't stored your pages in its index, the database the results come from.
• Google has it, but doesn't show it where it matters. You come up for your name, but when someone searches "employment lawyer in Palma" you're on page five, or nowhere. That's a ranking problem.

The first is usually solved within days once the cause is found. The second depends on who you're competing with and there's no button to fix it. So the first step is working out which of the two you're dealing with.

How to check in ten minutes

1. Search Google for site:yourdomain.com, with no space after the colon. You'll see the pages of your website that Google has stored. If none appear, Google doesn't have your site; if fewer appear than you have, some are missing. The number is approximate, but it gives you a picture.
2. Search for your business name. If your website doesn't appear even then, there's almost certainly an indexing problem, unless your name matches something very well known.
3. Search for what a client would type, such as your service and your town, in a private window. In your usual browser, results are influenced by your previous searches and your location.
4. Check your Google Maps listing if you serve a specific area. In many local searches it appears before any website.
5. Open Search Console, if your website is set up in it. It gives you the most information, and I explain it next.

The first two steps alone tell you whether the problem is indexing or ranking.

What to look at in Search Console

Search Console is Google's free tool for website owners. If your site isn't set up in it, ask whoever built it to add it in your name, or do it yourself: verification takes a few minutes. These are the sections that matter:

• URL inspection: you enter a page address and it tells you whether the page is on Google and, if not, why. If the page is new or you've fixed something, you can ask Google to review it from there.
• Indexing › Pages: how many pages Google has and which it doesn't, grouped by reason. The most common are "Excluded by noindex tag", "Blocked by robots.txt", "Page with redirect" and "Crawled – currently not indexed". That last one means Google has seen the page and decided not to include it, often because it adds little or repeats another page.
• Sitemaps: the sitemap is a list of your pages that helps Google find them. Check that it has been submitted and has no errors.
• Performance: which searches you appear for, your average position and how many clicks you get. If you appear in position 40 for your main service, Google has you, but far down.

An example from my own website: when I published the Catalan version, Google indexed the main pages in under ten days just from the sitemap, without requesting them one by one. Requesting indexing is useful for a specific page; you don't need to do it for every page.

Common causes when Google doesn't have your website

• The website is new. Google can take anything from a few days to a few weeks to discover it, especially if no other website links to it. Submitting the sitemap and adding the link to your Google Business Profile and other profiles speeds things up.
• A forgotten noindex tag. It's an instruction in the code telling Google "don't show this page". It's added while a site is under construction and sometimes nobody removes it. In WordPress there's a box under Settings › Reading, "Discourage search engines from indexing this site", that does exactly that.
• The robots.txt file blocks Google. This file tells search engines which parts of the site they may crawl. You can see it at yourdomain.com/robots.txt: if it says "Disallow: /" under "User-agent: *", it's shutting out the whole site.
• You changed domain or website without redirects. If the old addresses simply disappear, the new ones start from scratch. 301 redirects, which say a page has moved permanently, let Google carry over what you already had.
• Thin or duplicated pages. If several pages say the same thing or have two lines of text, Google may decide not to keep them.
• Google is seeing a different version of the site. It happens more than you'd think: the staging version, the one with or without "www", or an old address on the designer's server.

Almost all of these are quick to fix once detected. The hard part is finding the cause, and that's what Search Console is for.

If Google has your website but doesn't show it

There's no error to fix here. Google compares your page with every page that answers that search and shows first the ones it considers most useful and trustworthy. The most common reasons a small business stays low:

• Your website doesn't talk about what people search for. If your page says "comprehensive legal solutions" and your clients search for "divorce lawyer in Palma", Google has no reason to connect them. One page per service, in your clients' words, is usually the change that makes the most difference. The structure is in how to write a service page that converts ↗
• You're aiming at impossible searches. Ranking for "lawyer" or "web design" on their own is out of reach for almost any small business. Realistic targets are specific searches: your service, your specialism, your area.
• In local searches, the profile comes first. For "dentist in Manacor" or "plumber near me", Google shows the map with business profiles first. Without a complete profile with reviews, your website has a harder time. More on that in the Google Business Profile guide ↗
• Nobody mentions you. Mentions and links from real websites, such as professional bodies, associations, suppliers or local press, tell Google you exist and can be trusted.
• The site is slow or looks bad on mobile. It's rarely the main cause, but it makes the experience worse. If that's your case, read why your website is slow and how to fix it ↗
• It's still early. Rankings are measured in months. A three-week-old website competing with others that have been around for ten years needs time.

On timescales and promises, and how to spot someone selling smoke, read the hard truth about SEO ↗

When the problem is invisible: a hack

There's one case worth knowing about because it gives no signs on the website itself. My previous website, a WordPress site, was hacked and filled with casino spam pages. From the outside it looked normal, but searching for site:josecabello.net casino brought up around 630 results I hadn't created.

Search Console showed no security warnings and no manual actions. That's why it's not wise to wait for Google to warn you: searching site: with your domain every so often, together with words like casino or betting, tells you more than many dashboards.

The full story is in my website was hacked: what I did, step by step ↗ And if you suspect it's happening to you, start with what to do if your website has been hacked ↗

What to do in your case

• Nothing comes up with site:. Check the noindex tag and robots.txt, set up Search Console, submit the sitemap and request indexing for the home page. If nothing has changed in two or three weeks, have someone with experience look at it.
• Some pages appear, but not the important ones. Check the reason for each one in Search Console. If it's "Crawled – currently not indexed", improve that page's content before requesting indexing again.
• You appear for your name but not for your service. Work on one page per service, your Google Business Profile and reviews. It takes months, not days, and if you need clients sooner, ads can cover that time.
• You used to appear and now you don't. Think about what changed: a redesign, the domain, the hosting or the page addresses. If nothing changed, look for strange pages with site: and check Search Console.

If you get visitors but they don't get in touch, that's a different problem; I cover it in why my website isn't getting clients ↗

Common questions