Why is my website not showing on Google? 12 causes and how to fix them

First, run two checks

1. Search site:yourdomain.com. This lists the pages Google has indexed.
2. Open Google Search Console and use URL Inspection on your home page. It tells you whether the page is indexed and, if not, why.

If your site is not indexed at all

1. The site is new. Google can take days to weeks to find a new site. Add it to Search Console, submit your sitemap and request indexing of the home page.

2. A noindex tag is set. A `` tag tells Google to keep the page out of results. Developers often add it during building and forget to remove it.

3. WordPress is set to discourage search engines. In Settings, Reading, untick "Discourage search engines from indexing this site".

4. robots.txt blocks Google. Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. A line saying `Disallow: /` under `User-agent: *` blocks the whole site.

5. The site requires a login or password. Google cannot index pages behind a login or a staging password.

6. Server or DNS errors. If the site is often down, slow or returns errors, Google may drop pages. Search Console's Pages and Crawl stats reports show this.

If some pages are missing

7. Duplicate or thin content. Pages that are near-copies, or have only a few lines of text, may be "crawled but not indexed". Make each page useful and distinct.

8. Wrong canonical tags. A canonical pointing to another page tells Google to index that page instead.

9. No internal links. Pages that nothing links to are hard for Google to find. Link to them from menus or related pages and include them in the sitemap.

If the site is indexed but you cannot find it

10. You are searching for a broad or competitive term. A new site will not rank for "website design" in weeks. Search for your exact business name, then for specific, local phrases.

11. Competitors are stronger. Pages with better content, more relevant links and more reviews rank higher. This is where ongoing SEO work comes in.

12. A manual action or security issue. Check Search Console's Manual actions and Security issues reports. Hacked sites and spammy links can remove pages from results. See website security and malware removal.

Not showing on Google Maps?

Map results come from your Google Business Profile, not your website. Make sure the profile is verified, has the right category and is complete. See Google Business Profile setup.

Not showing in AI answers?

AI assistants draw on indexed pages, Bing's index and what other sites say about you. Make sure you are indexed in Bing Webmaster Tools too. See how to get mentioned by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

If you have checked these and still cannot find the problem, a technical SEO audit will.