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Field Notes

Why isn't my website showing up on Google? A checklist

Kashif team Published

A website usually stays out of Google for a plain reason: Google has not found it yet, something on the site tells Google to stay away, or the pages give Google too little to read. You can check most of these yourself, and the first check is a single search.

Go through the list in order. Stop when you find the problem, fix it, and come back to the rest later.

1. Check whether Google has your site at all

Type site:yourdomain.com into Google, with your own domain in place of yourdomain.com. Google's own help suggests this search to see which of your pages it has in its index.

  • Nothing comes back: Google has none of your pages yet. The rest of this list covers the usual reasons.
  • Some pages come back, but not the one you care about: look at that page first.
  • Your pages come back, but you never appear when you search for what you sell: Google knows the site, and the problem is what the pages say. Skip to point 4.

Google says this search does not always list every page it has, so treat it as a quick look. For a firmer answer, use Google Search Console. Google suggests adding your site to it to find errors that stop Google from understanding your pages.

2. Something on the site tells Google to stay away

Two settings can keep you out, and both are easy to switch on by accident.

robots.txt

This is a small file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt. It tells search engine crawlers which addresses they may visit. If it says Disallow: / under User-agent: *, every crawler is asked to stay off the whole site. Some setups add that rule while a site is being built, and it can stay in place after launch.

noindex

A noindex tag in a page's code tells Google to leave that page out. Google says it will drop such a page from its results entirely, even if other sites link to it. In WordPress, the box called "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" under Settings, Reading has the same aim. Check that it is not ticked.

One detail catches people out. Google says robots.txt is not a way to keep a page out of its results. If robots.txt blocks a page, Google cannot read the page, so it never sees the noindex tag either. To keep a page out, use noindex and let Google read it.

3. The site is new

Google says it can take a few weeks to notice a new site, or a change to an existing one. If your site went live last week, an empty site: search can be normal.

You can help Google find it sooner:

  • Link to the site from places that already exist: your Instagram bio, your WhatsApp Business profile, a directory you are listed in.
  • Make sure the site has a sitemap, a file that lists your pages for search engines. Many site builders make one for you.
  • Add the site to Google Search Console and submit the sitemap there.

4. Page titles that say nothing

The page title is the text in the browser tab, and it is one of the sources Google uses for the blue link in its results. A title like "Home" or "Untitled" tells Google and the searcher nothing.

Google asks for titles that are descriptive and concise, different on every page, and free of repeated boilerplate. "Dental clinic in Abdoun, Amman | Your clinic name" says what the page is and where. Write the description under it the same way: one or two sentences on what you offer and where.

A good title will not put you first. Google says it plainly: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." It does give Google something to match against when someone searches.

5. Your business lives only on Instagram

If you have no website, Google has much less to read about you. An Instagram profile can show very little to someone who is not signed in, and you control few of the fields search engines read first. We wrote about this in Your Instagram page is not a website.

The fix is small: one page with your name, what you do, your address, your hours and a phone number, with a real title. Link it from your Instagram bio.

6. Pages that are slow or do not open

A page that times out, shows an error, or warns visitors about the security certificate gives Google and people nothing to work with. Open your site on a phone, on mobile data, and try every page you link from the menu.

Google's guidance for site owners lists a good page experience among the basics. Google's free PageSpeed Insights measures how fast a page loads on a phone and what slows it down.

7. Google Maps is a separate job

Showing up on Google Maps, or in the map box above the results, is handled mostly through a Google Business Profile, not your website. Google describes the profile as the way to manage how your business details appear across Search and Maps, and suggests claiming yours. You set that up with Google. Google's own page on getting your business on Google links to it.

8. What Kashif checks from this list

Kashif reads your website the way a search engine reads it and lists what to fix first. From this checklist, it checks:

  • whether the site opens and its security certificate is complete
  • whether anything on the site blocks search engines
  • page titles and descriptions, and one main headline per page
  • whether you have a sitemap
  • phone and computer speed, using Google PageSpeed Insights

It does not check whether Google has indexed your pages, your position in Google, your Google Business Profile or your Instagram. Do the site: search and the check in Google Search Console yourself. Kashif reads up to 8 pages in a full check, and reads each page as the server sends it, so text that only appears after a script runs may be missed. The full method is on how we score.

To see which of these points apply to your site, run the free scan. You get a score in about a minute, with no card and no password.

Sources

Google Search Central pages on getting on Google, noindex, robots.txt and title links, and Kashif's /how-we-score, all read 2026-11-11