Why your website is not showing up on Google: a diagnostic in order

There are only two real possibilities, and they need different fixes. Either your pages are not in Google's index, which is a technical problem you can usually find in minutes, or they are indexed and not ranking for the searches you are watching, which is a competition and content problem. Separate the two first by searching site:yourdomain.com and by running your homepage through the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. Everything below follows that fork, in the order that finds the cause fastest.

Work through the checks in sequence. Each one tells you whether to stop and fix, or move to the next.

Check 1: are you in the index at all?

Search site:yourdomain.com in Google. Treat the result as a rough signal rather than a count.

• Nothing comes back. The site is not indexed. Go to check 2.
• Some pages come back. The site is known. Find out whether the specific page you care about is among them, then go to check 3.
• Everything comes back. Skip to check 6, because this is a ranking question.

Then verify properly. Set up Search Console for the domain and run the URL Inspection tool on the page in question. It tells you whether the URL is on Google, when it was last crawled, and which problem is stopping it. This single tool answers most of this article.

Check 2: are you blocking Google by accident?

These are the common blocks, in the order they occur.

What to check	How to check it	What you are looking for
robots.txt	Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt	Disallow: /, which blocks everything. See Google's robots.txt introduction
noindex tag	View page source and search for "noindex"	A meta robots noindex, often left on after a site build. Google explains it on blocking indexing
Staging settings	Your CMS privacy or visibility setting	A discourage search engines checkbox, and password protection left on
Server errors	URL Inspection, or load the page in a private window	4xx and 5xx responses, covered in Google's notes on HTTP and network errors
Canonical tags	View source for rel=canonical	A canonical pointing at a different page, which asks Google to index that one instead. See consolidating duplicate URLs
Content that needs JavaScript	URL Inspection, view crawled page	An empty page in the rendered HTML, discussed in JavaScript SEO basics

A noindex tag left behind after launch is the single most common cause of a new site being invisible. Check it before anything else.

Check 3: can Google find your pages?

A page with no links to it and no entry in a sitemap can sit undiscovered for a long time.

• Publish a sitemap and submit it in Search Console, following Google's guide to building a sitemap.
• Link to the page from somewhere real: your navigation, a category page, a related article. Pages that only exist in a sitemap get crawled last.
• Use request indexing in URL Inspection for a handful of important URLs. It is a nudge for individual pages, not a bulk tool.
• Check the Page Indexing report in Search Console for the reasons Google gives: discovered and not indexed, crawled and not indexed, excluded by noindex, alternate page with canonical.

Crawled and not indexed usually means the page was seen and judged too thin or too similar to something else. That is a content answer, not a technical one.

Check 4: how new is the site?

A brand new domain with few links takes time to be crawled, indexed and trusted. Days to a few weeks is normal for indexing. Give it the fastest possible start: a sitemap submitted, internal links in place, and at least one or two genuine links from sites that are already indexed, such as your own social profiles, a supplier page or a local directory. Indexing is free and no payment to Google is involved at any stage.

Check 5: are you searching for your business name, or for a service?

Two very different complaints get described in the same words. If your business name brings you up but "service in city" does not, you are indexed and the question is ranking. If even your exact business name with your town brings nothing, go back to check 2.

For a local business there is a separate surface: the map results. Those need a verified Business Profile, so if you appear in the ordinary results but not in Maps, add or claim the profile and complete verification, which Google says can take up to five business days after the final step.

Check 6: indexed, but not ranking

Now you are competing. Open the Performance report in Search Console and look at impressions for the page.

• Impressions but few clicks. You are ranking too low to be seen, or the title and description are not earning the click. Improve both, and compare your page against the three results above you for depth and specificity.
• No impressions at all. Google has the page but does not consider it a candidate for those queries. The usual cause is that the page does not actually answer the query, or several of your pages compete for it.
• Impressions on the wrong queries. Your wording describes the business as you talk internally rather than as customers search. Write the page around the question in their words.
• A drop rather than an absence. Check Google's ranking updates page for a dated core update, and the Search Status Dashboard for an incident.

Check 7: a manual action or a spam problem

Search Console has a Manual Actions report. If there is a notice there, it names the problem and the fix, and you submit a reconsideration request afterwards. This is also the moment to look honestly at anything an old agency did for you, against Google's spam policies: bought links, mass produced pages, text hidden from readers. Remove it and request reconsideration if a notice exists.

This page covers a site or page that is missing from Google's results. For a site that used to perform and recently fell, a traffic drop diagnostic covers the sequence of causes in a different order, starting with the date the change happened.

why your website is not showing up: the parts people ask about twice

How long does Google take to index a new website?

Commonly days, sometimes a few weeks, and faster once the site has a sitemap and at least one link from a page Google already crawls. Use URL Inspection on your most important page to see the current state rather than waiting and wondering.

Do I have to submit my site to Google or pay for indexing?

No payment is involved. Submitting a sitemap in Search Console and requesting indexing for key pages is the whole of the official process, and both are free.

Why does my site show for my business name but not for my services?

Because your name has no competition and your service terms have plenty. That is a ranking project: a real page for each service, written to answer the question a buyer types, with the local detail that makes it specifically about you.

My page is indexed but Google shows an old version. Why?

Google recrawls on its own schedule. Request indexing for the updated URL, make sure the page is linked from somewhere active, and check that no canonical tag is pointing at another version of the same content.

What does crawled, currently not indexed mean?

Google fetched the page and chose not to index it, which almost always points at the content: too thin, too close to another page of yours, or with nothing on it a searcher needed. Strengthen the page, then request indexing again.

Being absent from a search and being absent from an answer

The seven checks find out why Google is not showing your site. A different version of the same problem is a business that is indexed and ranking, yet never named when a buyer asks an assistant for a recommendation. The cause is usually different, and so is the fix.

Ask the assistants who they would suggest in your category and area. If you are missing, the sources they name show who they trust instead. AI Knows Us does this for a list of questions and shows which pages the assistants lean on.