Why is my website not showing up on Google?

Nearly always one of a handful of causes — and most of them you can't see just by looking at your site. Here's each one, and how to find out which is yours.

There are two versions of this problem, and from the outside they look identical. Either Google hasn't listed your site at all — something is quietly blocking it — or Google has listed you, and you're just sitting too far down to be found. The causes below cover both, in the order worth ruling out.

Something is telling Google to stay away

This is the one that catches most people out, because the site looks completely normal to visitors. Nothing appears broken. It just isn't in Google.

There's a small instruction that can be added to a page called noindex. It means: Google, don't list this. It's genuinely useful while a site is being built — nobody wants a half-finished site in search results. The trouble is that switching it off at launch is an easy step to forget, and the person who built your site may have moved on years ago.

Left on, it hides your website from Google indefinitely. No warning, no error message, no sign anything is wrong.

Google can't find all your pages

Google finds pages by following links and by reading a file called a sitemap — a plain list of every page on your site, usually at yourbusiness.co.uk/sitemap.xml. It's the difference between handing Google a contents page and asking it to wander round hoping to bump into things.

Two things go wrong here. Some sites have no sitemap at all. More often — and this is much harder to spot — the sitemap exists but is out of date, listing three pages when the site has twelve. Those nine missing pages may never get looked at.

Google can't confirm who you are

Search engines don't read a web page the way you do. Your address might sit in the footer in a lovely font, and Google still can't be certain it's an address rather than decoration.

There's a standard way of labelling this — a short block of code that states plainly: this is the business name, this is the phone number, this is the address, these are the opening hours. Google reads it, and increasingly so do AI assistants when someone asks them to recommend a local business.

Without it you're relying on Google guessing correctly. It often does. But "often" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and this is a small addition rather than a rebuild.

You're listed, but sitting below everyone else

This is the most common situation of all. Google has your website — it has simply decided that other pages answer the search better.

Some of that is competition you can't shortcut. But several of the things Google weighs up are ordinary site health, and they're fixable:

• No security certificate. A site still on http:// rather than https:// is marked as not secure in browsers and treated less favourably in search.
• Slow loading. Most searches now happen on phones, often on patchy signal. A heavy homepage loses people before it appears.
• Not built for phones. Google looks at the mobile version of your site first, not the desktop one.
• Links to pages that no longer exist. A frustrating dead end for visitors, and a sign to Google that the site isn't maintained.

You're found, but nobody gets in touch

Worth saying, because it's often the real problem behind "Google isn't working for me". Being found is only half of it. People arrive, and then something stops them.

Usually it's mundane. Contact details buried three clicks deep. No indication of which towns you cover. No map, so nobody's sure whether you're nearby. A share on Facebook that turns up as a bare grey link because the site has no preview image set. An enquiry form asking for eleven pieces of information before anyone's decided to enquire.

A few of the things it picks up

The check takes under a minute and needs nothing but your web address. A sample of what it reports:

Plus a dozen or so others, sorted so the things that actually matter sit at the top.

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