Diagnosing visibility problems
Why isn't my website showing on Google?
'Not showing on Google' isn't one problem — it's several different possible problems, each with a different fix. Before changing anything, work out which one applies to you.
Six different problems, one phrase
What "not showing" usually actually means.
Not indexed at all
Google hasn't crawled and stored the page, so it can never appear for any search, including your own business name. This is the most fixable version and usually shows up clearly in Search Console.
Indexed but not ranking for the search you want
The page exists in Google's index but doesn't appear in the results for the specific term you're checking, because competition, relevance or content depth aren't strong enough for that particular search yet.
Ranking, just much lower than expected
You're on page 3 or 4 rather than page 1. This is a competitiveness and content-quality problem rather than a technical one, and it's the most common outcome for newer or thinner sites.
Appearing only for your own brand name
Searching your business name finds you fine, but generic service searches don't. This usually means the site isn't yet seen as relevant or authoritative enough for those broader terms.
A local-results issue
Your website itself may be indexed and reasonably healthy, but you're not appearing in the Google Maps 'local pack' for nearby searches. That's usually a Google Business Profile and local-signals issue rather than a website problem — see local SEO.
A technical problem
A noindex tag left on by accident, a broken canonical, a robots.txt block, or a migration that quietly dropped pages from the index. These are usually the easiest to fix once found, and often the most damaging when missed.
Step one
Check whether Google knows the page exists.
Before diagnosing anything else, confirm indexing status directly. In Google Search Console, use URL Inspection on the specific page — the homepage and your key service pages, individually. It will tell you plainly whether a page is indexed, and if it isn't, usually gives a reason: crawled but not indexed, discovered but not crawled, blocked by robots.txt, or excluded by a noindex tag.
If you don't have Search Console set up yet, that's worth doing before anything else — it's free, it's Google's own data, and guessing without it wastes time on the wrong fixes.
Once you know indexing status, the cause is usually one of the items below.
Common causes
What's usually behind it.
The website is genuinely new
New domains and new pages take time to be discovered, crawled and evaluated. There's no fixed length of time this takes, and no reputable way to guarantee otherwise.
No crawlable links pointing to the page
If a page isn't linked from your navigation, sitemap or other pages, Google may struggle to find it at all, however good the content is.
No sitemap, or a broken one
An XML sitemap helps Google discover pages efficiently. Submit it in Search Console and check it doesn't list broken or redirected URLs.
A noindex tag
Sometimes left on deliberately during development and never removed at launch. Worth checking on every important page, especially after a rebuild.
An incorrect canonical tag
A canonical tag tells Google which version of a page is the 'real' one. If it points to the wrong URL — sometimes a leftover from a staging site — Google may index the wrong page or none at all.
Content that's too thin to rank
A page with a couple of sentences on a competitive topic is unlikely to outrank pages that answer the search properly. This is fixable, but it's a content problem, not a technical one.
Genuinely intense competition
Some searches are dominated by large, well-established sites. Ranking for these can take sustained, focused work over a long period, and sometimes isn't realistic at all for a small local business.
Unclear page targeting
If several pages on your site all vaguely compete for the same search term, Google may struggle to decide which one to show, and can end up ranking none of them well.
Duplicate or near-duplicate pages
Multiple pages with very similar content — common after a rushed rebuild or a franchise-style area-page rollout — can dilute rather than multiply your visibility.
Migration errors
A recent redesign or platform move that changed URLs, dropped redirects or removed pages can cause a sudden drop in visibility. See website not ranking after redesign for a dedicated checklist.
Other technical problems
Slow load times, broken mobile rendering, JavaScript that hides content from crawlers, or server errors can all interfere with indexing and ranking.
Be realistic
New websites take time. We won't pretend otherwise.
If your website is genuinely new, some invisibility is normal rather than broken. Google needs to discover, crawl and build up confidence in a site before it ranks it consistently for competitive searches, and that process has no fixed, honest timeframe — anyone quoting you an exact number of weeks is guessing.
What matters in the meantime is making sure nothing technical is actively blocking you, and that the foundations — indexing, page targeting, content depth — are genuinely sound, so the site is ready to earn visibility as it matures rather than fighting its own setup.
Before you ask
Google visibility — common questions
If the cause looks structural, read about technical SEO and on-page SEO. An SEO audit is usually the quickest way to find out which it is.
Next step
Not sure which problem you've got?
Send us the website, we'll take a proper look.
Tell us what your business does and what you need the website to achieve. We'll come back to you personally with honest thoughts — and a clear proposal if it's a good fit.