Why Isn't My Website Showing Up on Google?

First, check whether you are indexed

Search Google for site:yourdomain.com.

• No results: Google has not indexed the site. See causes 1 to 5.
• Results appear: you are indexed but not ranking. See causes 6 to 10.

Then open Google Search Console and read the Pages report for the exact reason.

If you are not indexed

1. A noindex tag. Developers add it while building and forget to remove it. In WordPress, check Settings, Reading, "Discourage search engines". This is more common than you would think; we have seen it on live business sites.
2. Blocked by robots.txt. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for Disallow: /.
3. The site is new. Google can take days or weeks to find it. Submit a sitemap in Search Console.
4. No links point to it. Crawlers follow links. Get at least a few from real sites and your social profiles.
5. A manual action or hacked content. Check the Security and Manual actions reports in Search Console.

If you are indexed but not ranking

6. The keyword is too competitive for your site's current authority. Target more specific searches first.
7. The page does not match the search intent. Look at what ranks and compare.
8. Thin or duplicate content. Pages with little original text are ignored.
9. Few or no backlinks. See off-page SEO.
10. A slow or broken mobile site. Test it with the SEO checker.

If you are missing from Google Maps

• The Business Profile is unverified or suspended
• The primary category is wrong
• You are outside the area the searcher is in
• Competitors have more and newer reviews

See the local SEO guide.

If you used to rank and dropped

• A redesign or migration changed URLs without redirects
• A Google update re-evaluated your content
• A competitor improved
• A technical change blocked pages

Compare dates in Search Console with changes to the site.

Still stuck?

Ask for a free SEO audit. We check indexing first, because it is the fault that hides everything else.

Frequently asked questions