Why is my website not showing on Google?

A website usually fails to show on Google for one of three reasons: Google hasn't found or indexed it yet (common for sites under a few weeks old), something on the site is telling Google to stay away (a noindex tag, a robots.txt block or a password-protected staging setting left on after launch), or the site is indexed but doesn't rank highly enough for the words you searched. The first two are usually quick fixes once you know where to look. The third is a content and competition problem, and it is by far the most common of the three.

Is my website on Google at all?

Check this before anything else, because it decides which half of this guide applies to you. Type site:yourdomain.co.uk into Google. If pages come back, your site is indexed and the problem is ranking, not visibility. If nothing comes back, Google either hasn't indexed the site or has been told not to.

Then search for your exact business name. Most indexed sites appear for their own name within days. If you show up for your name but not for "plumber Cardiff", Google knows you exist but doesn't yet rate you above the businesses already ranking for that term. That is the normal starting position for a new site, not a fault.

For a definitive answer, use the free URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console. Paste in any page address and it tells you whether that page is on Google and, if not, why not.

Why is my website not showing up on Google search?

These are the causes I see most often on small business sites, roughly in order of how often they turn up.

Cause	How to spot it	Typical fix time
Site is brand new	site: search returns nothing; domain registered in the last few weeks	Days to a few weeks after submitting a sitemap
Noindex tag left on	URL Inspection says "Excluded by 'noindex' tag"	Minutes to fix, then a recrawl
Search engines hidden in the site builder	A "hide from search engines" or "discourage search engines" box ticked in WordPress, Wix or Squarespace settings	Minutes, then a recrawl
Robots.txt blocking Google	yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt contains Disallow: /	Minutes, then a recrawl
Thin or duplicate pages	Search Console "Pages" report shows "Crawled, currently not indexed"	Weeks: needs better content
Old URLs not redirected after a redesign	Traffic dropped on launch day; old addresses return 404	A day to set up redirects
Indexed but outranked	Shows for your business name, not for service terms	Months of content and local work
Manual action (penalty)	Search Console "Manual actions" report lists an issue	Weeks, plus a reconsideration request

Everything above the "indexed but outranked" row is a technical fault: something stopping Google from reaching or accepting your pages. Our guide to what technical SEO covers goes through those checks in more detail.

Why is my new website not showing up on Google?

Google has to discover a site before it can index it, and a new domain with no links pointing to it has nothing to be discovered through. Google's own documentation says crawling and indexing can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and there's no paid shortcut. You can speed it up by verifying the site in Search Console, submitting your sitemap, and requesting indexing for your homepage and key service pages through URL Inspection. Listing the business on its Google Business Profile and a few reputable directories also gives Google a route to find you.

The trap with new sites is the launch itself. Many web designers build on a staging copy with search engines blocked, and the block survives the move to the live domain. If your site has been live for a month and site: still returns nothing, check for a stray noindex or robots.txt block before assuming Google is just being slow.

Why does my website not show up on Google when I search for my services?

This is the version of the question most business owners are really asking, and the answer is usually competition rather than a fault. Being indexed only puts you in the queue. To appear on page one for "electrician Newport", Google has to judge your page more useful for that search than the ten pages already there, and those pages often have years of content, reviews and links behind them.

Three things usually close the gap. First, a dedicated page for each service you want to be found for, rather than one page listing everything. Second, content that answers what customers actually ask, organised so related pages support each other (the approach in our guide to topic clusters). Third, signals from elsewhere: links, citations and reviews, which is the work behind content and link building. Expect months, not weeks. Our guide to how long SEO takes sets out realistic timescales.

Why is my business not showing on Google Maps?

The map results come from Google Business Profile, not from your website, so a missing map listing is a separate problem with a separate fix. If you haven't created and verified a profile, you won't appear in the map pack however good your website is. If you have one but don't show, the usual reasons are distance from the searcher, a thin profile with no reviews, or a business category that doesn't match the search. Being near the person searching counts for a lot here, and you can't change where you are.

Could Google have penalised my site?

Probably not. Manual penalties are uncommon for ordinary small business sites and are mostly handed out for things like buying links in bulk or publishing spam at scale. Search Console's "Manual actions" report tells you for certain, and if it says "No issues detected" you can rule it out. A sudden drop after a Google core update is not a penalty either. It means Google reassessed which pages answer a query best, and the fix is better content rather than an appeal.

What if Google simply won't index some of my pages?

Not every page is meant to be indexed, and Google doesn't promise to index everything it crawls. Tag archives, thank-you pages and near-identical location pages are often left out, and that is fine. It only matters when the excluded pages are ones you want customers to find. If your main service pages sit under "Crawled, currently not indexed", Google has looked at them and decided they aren't worth including yet. The usual cause is thin or duplicated wording, so the fix is to make each page useful in its own right before requesting indexing again.

When is it worth getting help?

If the free checks above turn up a noindex tag or a robots.txt block, fix it yourself or ask your web designer; it shouldn't cost much. If the site is indexed but still invisible for the searches that matter, or you can't work out what Search Console is telling you, a fixed-price SEO audit diagnoses the cause and puts the fixes in priority order, technical and content together.