Why is my website not showing up on Google? How to fix it

Google Search works in three stages. It crawls the web to find pages, it indexes them (stores what each page is about), and it serves results when someone searches. Google says plainly that not every page makes it through every stage, and that it does not guarantee to crawl, index or show any page.

So “not showing up” can mean one of three things:

• Google has not found the site. Common with new sites that nothing links to yet.
• Google found it but has not indexed it. Often because a setting tells Google not to, or because Google could not reach the pages.
• Google has indexed it, but you do not see it for the searches you care about. That is a ranking problem, and it needs different fixes.

Work out which of the three you have before changing anything. In our experience, owners sometimes rewrite pages or pay for adverts when the cause is a single setting.

Searching your own name and searching for your service are two different tests. Your name tests whether Google knows the site exists. “Plumber in Stockport” tests ranking, which is covered further down. Check the name first. If that fails, one of these is usually why:

• Your Business Profile shows, but your website does not. The profile on the map and your website are separate, and Google can show one without the other. Make sure your Google Business Profile links to your website, then run the checks below on the site.
• The domain is new. Google finds pages by following links and reading sitemaps, and a brand new address has few links pointing at it. Crawling can take a few days to a few weeks.
• Your name is also a common phrase. If you trade as “Green Gardens” or “Premier Building Services”, Google may show pages about the phrase, directories or similarly named firms. Try your name in quotes with your town. Make sure the exact name is in your home page title and written in plain text on the page, and spelt the same way on every profile.
• You are checking from your own browser. Google says what it shows can depend on the searcher’s location, language and device (How Search works), and can be personalised from your Google Account (Search Help). Search again in a private window, and add your town, as a customer nearby would.

1. Do a site: search. Type site:yourdomain.co.uk into Google, with your own address. If pages come back, you are in the index. It does not show every indexed page, so a page missing here may still be on Google.
2. Set up Google Search Console for your domain. It is where Google reports directly on your site. The platform notes below say how on each builder.
3. Use URL Inspection on your home page and one key service page. “URL is on Google” means the page is eligible to appear in results. It does not guarantee that it will. If the page is not on Google, the tool gives a reason.
4. Open the Page indexing report. It shows which of your pages Google has indexed and lists the ones it knows about but has not indexed, each with a reason.
5. Request indexing once, then wait. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and asking again for the same page will not make it faster.

A sitemap, a list of your pages, helps Google discover them but promises no speed. Google’s starter guide says a sitemap “isn’t required”, and to focus first on making sure people know about your site. If your platform makes one, submit it anyway.

A made-up example. Say a decorator’s rebuilt site shows 10 addresses in the Page indexing report: 7 indexed and 3 not indexed.

Nothing you can pay for or fill in guarantees a place: Google says it does not accept payment to crawl a site more often, and it does not promise to index any page. These four steps give it the best chance to find yours:

1. Verify your site in Google Search Console. It is where Google reports on your site. Wix, Squarespace and Shopify each explain how in their help pages (see the platform sections below).
2. Submit your sitemap in Search Console. Google’s starter guide says a sitemap “isn’t required”, but it helps Google discover your pages, and most builders make one for you (on Shopify it is sitemap.xml).
3. Run URL Inspection on your home page and request indexing once. Google says crawling can take a few days to a few weeks, and asking again does not speed it up. “URL is on Google” means the page is eligible to appear, which is no guarantee that it will.
4. Link the site from your Google Business Profile. Google’s profile help says you can share your website on your profile, and Google finds pages by following links. Add the address to your other profiles too.

To check robots.txt, open yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt in your browser. A file that blocks the whole site has two short lines: “User-agent: *” (every crawler), then “Disallow: /” (the slash on its own means the whole site). If you see that pair, that is your problem.

Two rarer causes are quick to rule out in Search Console. A manual action means a human reviewer at Google decided pages break its spam policies, and Google says some or all of the site will then not be shown. A security issue means Google found signs the site was hacked or could harm visitors; those pages can carry a warning in results or in the browser. Open both reports; if they are empty, you can rule these out.

Google is clear that not every page needs to be indexed. A “Page with redirect” for an old address you deliberately redirected is the system working.

In Wix’s SEO settings, check that “Let search engines index your site” is turned on. Turned off, it hides the whole site.

If the site shows but one page does not, check that page on its own. In the editor, open the page’s SEO basics and look at the “Let search engines index this page” toggle. Wix’s page SEO help says that when it is disabled, “Search engines will not index your page”. Turn it on and publish the site.

Then connect Google Search Console. Wix’s help centre says you can do it from the SEO Setup Checklist in your site’s SEO dashboard, and that it needs a Premium plan and a connected domain. Once it is connected, use URL Inspection on your home page to see what Google reports. A new site may simply not have been crawled yet.

Squarespace. It has two settings to check. The site-wide “Block Search engine crawlers” setting, under Settings, then Crawlers, must be off. And key pages must not have “Hide page from search results” turned on.

Squarespace has a built-in Search Console connection, under Analytics, then Search keywords, then Connect. Use it, then inspect your home page.

Shopify. If the store is still in private mode, with its password page on, it is hidden from visitors and from search engines. Shopify says the store must not be in private mode for Google to verify or crawl it.

To set up Search Console, Shopify’s help page has you paste Google’s verification meta tag into your theme’s theme.liquid file, or verify with a DNS TXT record instead. Then submit sitemap.xml in Search Console.

Go to Settings, then Reading, and check that the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box under Search engine visibility is unticked. WordPress’s own documentation says ticking it adds a noindex tag to the site, and that it is up to search engines to honour it.

SEO plugins and themes can also set noindex page by page. If the box is clear, use URL Inspection to see which pages are marked noindex or blocked by robots.txt, and ask whoever built the site. On any platform, if a setting looks right but URL Inspection still reports a problem, trust the inspection.

If your site used to appear and has dropped out, something usually changed. In Search Console, look at when clicks fell, then ask what happened around that date:

• A redesign or a move to a new platform that changed page addresses without redirects. Google warns of temporary swings after any move and recommends permanent 301 or 308 redirects. Our guide to redesigning without losing rankings has a step-by-step checklist.
• A noindex setting switched on during the redesign, or a password or “coming soon” page left in place.
• A domain or hosting plan that lapsed, or a change of domain without redirects. Our guide to what a website costs to run lists what renews each year, and who owns your website explains how to check whose name the domain is in.
• A Google core update. Several times a year Google makes broad changes to its ranking. Google says these do not target specific sites, and pages that move down are not necessarily bad. If a large drop lasts, review your content; Google says recovery can take several months.

If nothing changed on your side and the site is still indexed, the drop is in rankings. Competitors change their sites too.

If your site is indexed but you cannot find it for your service and town, the problem is ranking. Being in the index means you are eligible to appear. Where you appear depends on how well your pages answer the search compared with everyone else’s, and nobody can promise you a position.

For local searches, Google says results are mainly based on relevance (how well you match the search), distance (how far you are from the searcher) and prominence, which the same page also calls popularity (how well known you are, drawing on things like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have). You can work on two of the three. Our guides to how Google Business Profiles work and local SEO basics cover this.

On the website itself, Google’s starter guide comes down to a few things a small business can check:

• Does each page say clearly what it is about? A unique, clear page title, and wording that uses the words a customer would search.
• Is there a page for each service you want to be found for? One page covering everything struggles to match any one search.
• Is the content genuinely helpful? Prices, areas covered, how the job works, real photos.
• Do other sites link to you? Google finds most new pages through links.
• Is it quick and easy to use on a phone? Not one of the starter guide’s headings, but in our experience it is where many small business sites fall down.

Then be patient. Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months.

You may not need a new website to fix this. In our experience, a few clearer pages and a properly set-up Google Business Profile often do more than a redesign. If the site is too thin, slow or muddled to compete, a rebuild such as our Growth Website at £1,400 is one option, and our redesign cost guide covers others. A free Growth Audit gives you a written, prioritised list of what is costing you enquiries and what we would do about it, whether or not you go ahead.