Why isn't my website showing up on Google?

Short answer: when your website doesn't show up on Google, it's almost always one of two problems. Either Google hasn't indexed your site (it doesn't know the pages exist, or something told it to skip them), or Google has indexed it but ranks it below the results you're seeing. A 30-second test tells you which one you have, and the fixes are completely different.

This guide walks through that test and then every common cause in the order I check them on a real site review. The first few take five minutes and are the culprit more often than you'd think.

The 30-second test: which problem do you have?

Open Google and search for site:yourdomain.com, with your real domain and no space after the colon. Then search your exact business name. Match what you see to this table:

1. Google hasn't indexed your site

If site:yourdomain.com returns nothing, work through these causes in order.

Your site is new and Google hasn't found it yet

Google doesn't discover new sites instantly, and a brand-new domain with no links pointing to it can sit unnoticed for weeks. The fix is free and takes about fifteen minutes:

1. Set up Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console and verify that you own the domain.
2. Submit your sitemap (usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) under Sitemaps.
3. Paste your homepage URL into the URL Inspection bar at the top and click Request indexing.

That usually gets a new site indexed within a few days instead of a few weeks. Requesting indexing more than once doesn't speed it up.

A "hide from search engines" switch is still on

This is the most common cause I find, and it's nobody's fault: builders hide sites while they're under construction, and the switch gets forgotten at launch. Where to look:

• WordPress: Settings → Reading → make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unchecked. SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math can also set individual pages to noindex.
• Wix: in your SEO settings, make sure "Let search engines index your site" is turned on.
• Squarespace, GoDaddy and other builders: check site visibility. A password-protected, private, or "coming soon" site can't be indexed, and most builders also have a per-page "hide from search results" option.
• Google Sites: open Publish settings and make sure "Request public search engines to not display my site" is unchecked.

A noindex tag or robots.txt is blocking Google

If you don't use a site builder, check the code directly. Two quick tests:

• Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. If you see Disallow: / under User-agent: *, the whole site is blocked from crawling.
• On your homepage, right-click → View page source, press Ctrl+F, and search for noindex. If it appears in a robots meta tag, that page is telling Google to leave it out.

Search Console's Pages report will also flag both, as "Blocked by robots.txt" and "Excluded by 'noindex' tag."

Search Console says "Discovered" or "Crawled – currently not indexed"

These two statuses confuse almost everyone, so here's what they mean:

• Discovered – currently not indexed: Google knows the page exists but hasn't visited it yet. On a new or small site this usually clears on its own. Internal links from your homepage to the page help.
• Crawled – currently not indexed: Google read the page and decided it wasn't worth including. Usually that means it's too thin, too similar to another page, or too much like thousands of other pages on the web. The fix is better content, not resubmitting.

Google is indexing a different version of your site

Your site can exist at up to four addresses: with and without www, and with http or https. If they don't all redirect to one version, Google may index the "wrong" one, or none of them reliably. Type each version into your browser; all four should land on the same address. In Search Console, the URL Inspection tool shows which version Google picked as the canonical.

The site is down, slow, or blank to Google

If the server times out or throws errors when Google visits, pages drop out. Sites built entirely in JavaScript can also look empty to Google even though they look fine to you. Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights (free) and check Search Console's Settings → Crawl stats for server errors.

2. You're indexed, but your business name doesn't come up

When Google has your pages but you don't appear for your own name, the cause is usually one of these:

• Your name is generic or shared. "Elite Construction" or "Premier Cleaning" is competing with dozens of businesses, plus every directory listing them. Add your city to the test ("Elite Construction Midlothian"). If you show up then, it's a ranking problem, not an indexing problem.
• Your homepage doesn't say your name clearly. Your business name should be in the homepage title (the text on the browser tab), the main heading, and the footer along with your address and phone number.
• You don't have a Google Business Profile. For local businesses, the profile is often what appears for a name search, not the website. If you don't have one, Google has much less to connect your name to. Here's how to set one up properly.
• Your listings don't agree. If Yelp, Facebook, the BBB and your website show different names, addresses or phone numbers, Google is less sure they're all the same business.

3. You're indexed, but not for what customers search

This is the most common situation, and it's a ranking problem, not a broken website. Google is showing other businesses ahead of you for searches like "roof repair Richmond VA." The usual reasons:

Your site doesn't really talk about the service

Google can't rank you for "bathroom remodeling" if your site mentions it once in a bulleted list. One-page sites with three sentences per service struggle here. Every service you want calls for needs its own page that answers what customers ask: what it costs, how long it takes, what areas you cover, and what past jobs looked like.

Your local signals are weak

For local searches, Google relies heavily on things outside your website: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and consistent listings across the web. The map results (the "3-pack" above the regular links) are ranked almost entirely on those. A strong website with a half-empty profile is fighting with one hand tied.

The businesses above you are simply doing more

Sometimes nothing is wrong. The competitors above you have more reviews, more pages and more years online. That isn't a five-minute fix, but in most local markets the bar is lower than owners assume. In my 2026 study of Richmond-area small businesses, 33.1% of customer-facing businesses had no website at all, and 55.1% of those with a Google profile had fewer than ten reviews. Steady, ordinary work beats a surprising amount of the competition.

Distance matters, and you can't change it

For "near me" searches, Google weighs how close you are to the person searching. A Chesterfield business won't show at the top of the map for someone searching in Short Pump, however good the site is. Your website and service-area pages can still rank in the regular results for those areas.

4. You were on Google, then disappeared

A sudden drop almost always has a specific cause. Check these in order:

• A redesign or platform move. If page addresses changed and the old ones weren't redirected, every old page Google knew about now leads nowhere. This is the most common cause of a sudden drop.
• A plugin, theme or builder update that switched on noindex or changed robots.txt. Re-run the checks in section 1.
• The domain or hosting lapsed. An expired domain or unpaid hosting takes the site offline, and Google drops it within days.
• The site was hacked. Search Console → Security issues will say so. Hacked sites often show spam pages in site: results that you never created.
• A manual penalty. Search Console → Manual actions. These are rare for small businesses, and usually tied to bought links or copied content.
• A Google algorithm update. If rankings slid gradually across many pages and none of the above applies, a core update may have re-ranked your market. The response is better content, not technical tricks.

What not to do

• Don't pay to "submit your site to 500 search engines." Google doesn't accept paid submissions, and the rest don't matter.
• Don't buy backlinks or cheap SEO packages. Automated link-building is how sites get penalized. (More on what real SEO costs.)
• Don't keep re-requesting indexing. One request is enough, and repeats don't move you up the queue.
• Don't confuse Google Ads with search results. Running ads puts you in the paid slots while you pay. It doesn't make Google index or rank your website.

How long each fix takes to show results

Free tools to diagnose it yourself

• Google Search Console is the ground truth. It shows exactly which pages Google has indexed, why the others aren't, and what searches you appear for. If you set up only one tool, make it this one.
• PageSpeed Insights: paste your URL and get a speed score and a ranked list of what's slowing you down.
• Google's Rich Results Test checks whether your structured data (schema markup) is valid.
• Bing Webmaster Tools is often forgotten. Several AI assistants draw on Bing's index, so being indexed there affects whether they can recommend you.
• My free website checker scores the basics (speed, mobile, schema, AI-search readiness) in one pass.

Still stuck?

If you're a Richmond-area business, I'll run every check on this page for you for free and send you the three highest-impact fixes, whether or not you ever hire me. I'd rather you know what's actually wrong than guess.

Questions people ask