Why isn't my website showing on Google?

Few things are as unsettling as searching for your own business and finding nothing. The good news is that a site missing from Google is rarely a mystery. It is almost always one of a handful of causes, and most of them are fixable once you know which one you are looking at.

First, separate two different problems. 'My site does not appear at all, even when I search my exact business name' is an indexing problem. 'My site appears for my name but not for what I sell' is a ranking problem. They have different causes and different fixes, so it helps to know which one you have before you start.

If you cannot find the site even by name, check that Google has actually been allowed to see it. A page can be accidentally blocked from search, either by a setting left on from when the site was being built, or by a stray instruction in the site's code telling search engines to stay away. This is the single most common cause of a brand-new site being invisible, and it is usually a one-line fix.

Next, confirm the site has been found at all. New sites and new pages are not indexed the moment they go live. It can take days or weeks. Setting up Google Search Console, submitting your sitemap and asking for the key pages to be indexed all speed this up, and Search Console will tell you plainly whether a page is included or not, and why.

A site missing from Google is rarely a mystery.

If the site is indexed but simply does not rank for the things you sell, that is a longer game. Google shows the results it believes answer the search best, so the pages have to actually address what people type, in plain language, with enough substance to be useful. A thin page that mentions a service in passing will lose to one that genuinely covers it.

Competition and age play a part too. For a well-established phrase with strong incumbents, a new site will not arrive on page one in a fortnight, however good it is. Progress comes from steadily building relevant content, earning mentions and links from other sites, and giving it time. Anyone promising instant rankings is selling something.

Finally, be realistic about local versus national terms. It is far easier to show up for 'water cooler supplier in Watford' than for 'water cooler', and the local phrasing is usually what your actual customers search anyway. Targeting the specific, local and buying-intent terms first tends to bring enquiries long before the broad ones move.

If your site is missing and you cannot tell which of these is the cause, it is worth a proper look rather than a guess. Send us the site and we will tell you why it is not showing, and what it would take to fix it.