Why is my website not showing up on Google? Causes and fixes

Work through the checks below in order. Each one rules out a cause before you move to the next. AI answers cite what's been crawled, and they lean toward pages that are kept current. A site not indexed by Google is missing from both the classic results and Google's AI Overviews, which only link to indexed pages. For background on the pipeline, see how Google indexing works.

First check: is the site indexed at all?

The quickest first check is to search site:yourdomain.com on Google, then confirm with URL Inspection in Search Console. If nothing appears, Google hasn't indexed the site; if pages appear, the problem is ranking or specific pages.

Run these three checks:

1. site: search. Search site:yourdomain.com. Google's site: operator docs warn the list "is not always exhaustive," so a missing page here isn't proof. Zero results for the whole domain, though, is a strong signal.
2. URL Inspection. Verify the site in Search Console, then inspect the homepage and a key page with URL Inspection. It tells you whether the URL is on Google and, if not, why.
3. Page indexing report. In Search Console, open Indexing > Pages to see how many URLs are indexed and the reasons the rest aren't. Learn to read the page indexing report.

For more than a handful of URLs, or for client sites you can't verify, check if your site is indexed with a bulk method.

It's new and Google hasn't crawled it yet

A new site often doesn't show up on Google simply because Google hasn't discovered or crawled it yet. Google says "It can take a week or so for Google to start crawling and indexing a new page or site" (Page indexing report help), and that crawling "can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks" (Ask Google to recrawl your URLs).

New domains have no history and few links pointing in, so Google has little reason to prioritize them. To help discovery:

• Verify the site in Search Console and submit an XML sitemap in the Sitemaps report.
• Make sure every important page is linked from the homepage or main navigation.
• Get at least a few links from pages Google already crawls: your social profiles, directories you genuinely belong in, partners or a launch post.
• Request indexing for the homepage and your most important pages with URL Inspection.

If the site is several weeks old and still absent, assume something is blocking it and keep going.

A noindex tag or robots.txt rule is blocking it

A noindex directive or a robots.txt disallow rule is the most common reason an established site or page isn't showing up on Google search. Both are often left over from development and are easy to miss.

How to check:

1. View the page source and search for noindex. Look for <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> or a Googlebot-specific version.
2. Check response headers for X-Robots-Tag: noindex, which can be set by the server or CDN. Google's noindex documentation covers both forms.
3. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for Disallow: / or rules covering your important paths.
4. Check CMS settings. WordPress's "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" option and SEO plugins can apply noindex site-wide or per post type.
5. Confirm in URL Inspection. It reports "URL marked 'noindex'" or "URL blocked by robots.txt" directly.

Don't use robots.txt to keep a page out of the index. If robots.txt blocks a page, Google can't see its noindex tag. Use noindex on a crawlable page instead.

Google can't reach or render the page

If Googlebot can't fetch the page or can't see its content after rendering, Google can't index it. Server errors, access blocks and content that only appears after JavaScript or a user action are the usual culprits.

Check for:

• Server errors (5xx) and timeouts. Look at the Page indexing report for "Server error (5xx)" and at your hosting logs.
• Firewalls and bot protection returning 403 to Googlebot. Security plugins and CDN rules sometimes block crawlers.
• Login walls (401) on pages you meant to be public.
• Rendering problems. In URL Inspection, run Test live URL and view the rendered HTML and screenshot. If your main content is missing there, Google isn't seeing it.

Slow or failing servers also reduce how much Google crawls. Google's crawl budget guide says that when a site slows down or errors, "the limit goes down and Google crawls less."

Duplicate or thin pages Google chose not to index

When some pages are indexed but others aren't, Google may have crawled them and decided they're duplicates or not valuable enough to store. Google doesn't index every page it can reach.

Look in the Page indexing report for:

• Crawled - currently not indexed: Google fetched the page and passed on it. Usually thin, near-duplicate or weakly linked content. Our guide covers pages that are crawled but not indexed.
• Duplicate without user-selected canonical or Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user: Google folded the page into another URL. Make your canonical tags, internal links and sitemap agree (consolidating duplicate URLs).
• Soft 404: the page looks empty or like an error page.

The fix is on the page: add unique, useful content, merge near-duplicates, and link to the page from relevant pages that are already indexed.

It's indexed but doesn't rank for your search

If the site is indexed but you can't find it, the problem is ranking, not indexing. Indexed means Google stored the page; it doesn't mean Google shows it for every query.

Test it:

1. Search your exact brand name in quotes.
2. Search a unique sentence from the page in quotes.
3. Check the Performance report in Search Console for queries where you already get impressions.

If the page appears for exact-match searches, Google has it. Ranking for broader terms then depends on relevance, content quality, competition and links. A brand-new site rarely ranks for competitive head terms early on. Target specific, lower-competition queries first and build from there.

A manual action or security issue

A manual action or security issue can remove pages or a whole site from Google's results. Both are reported in Search Console, so they're quick to rule out.

• Manual actions: open the Manual actions report in Search Console. Google's Manual actions report help explains each type, such as "Unnatural links to your site" or "Thin content with little or no added value," and how to request a review after fixing.
• Security issues: open the Security issues report for hacked content, malware and unwanted software, or social engineering.

These are rare compared with the causes above, but if either report shows an issue, fix it before anything else.

How to get Google to look again

Once the cause is fixed, ask Google to look again: resubmit the sitemap, request indexing for key URLs and strengthen internal links. Google still decides when to crawl and whether to index.

1. Request indexing for the homepage and priority pages in URL Inspection. There's a daily quota, and Google says repeated requests for the same URL "won't get it crawled any faster."
2. Resubmit your sitemap in the Sitemaps report, with an accurate lastmod for pages you changed (Build and submit a sitemap).
3. Link to fixed pages from pages Google crawls often.
4. For many URLs, use a service that pushes each URL to Google. FreshlyCited checks each URL first and only acts on the invisible ones, so you can push invisible pages to Google without wasting effort on pages Google already has.

Skip the Google Indexing API for this. Google limits it to pages with JobPosting or BroadcastEvent markup (Using the Indexing API).

Confirm the fix: re-check what Google sees

Confirm the fix by re-checking each important URL a few days after requesting a crawl, and again a week or two later. A fix only counts when Google shows the page as indexed.

Use a short checklist:

• URL Inspection shows "URL is on Google" for key pages.
• The Page indexing report's indexed count is rising.
• Pages appear for an exact-match search of a unique sentence.
• Any "Validate fix" request in the report has passed. Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks, sometimes longer (Page indexing report help).
• Remaining invisible pages have a diagnosed reason, not just a second request.

When you're tracking dozens of pages or several client sites, run a visibility check to see which URLs are seen by Google and which are still invisible.

Check your own links free, and find out exactly which of your pages Google can see.