The website is live. You type the business name into Google and get a directory listing, your Facebook page and a competitor, but not your website.
Most advice on this is a long list of possible causes, with no way of telling which one applies to you. That matters, because “not showing on Google” covers at least four different problems, and each one has a different fix. A website Google has never found needs different help from one that has vanished, and neither has much in common with a business that is missing from Google Maps.
So this guide starts with a check that takes a couple of minutes, then sends you to the part that fits. The causes are rarely dramatic. I have seen one website disappear from Google because of a single ticked box in WordPress, and another because its owner blocked every visitor from outside the UK, Google included. Both came down to a setting, and both took months to recover from.
First, Check Whether It Is Really Missing
Before you change anything, spend two minutes finding out what Google can actually see. Two searches will do it.
- Search for your business name. If your website appears, Google has it. If you have a Google Business Profile, it usually appears as well, in a panel with your address, opening hours and reviews.
- Search for site:yourdomain.co.uk, using your own domain with no space after the colon. This asks Google to list the pages it holds from your website, and it is the check Google’s own starter guide suggests.
The site: search is quick rather than perfect. Google says it does not necessarily show every page it has indexed. For a firm answer about a particular page, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console, which I come back to below.
What comes back puts you in one of four situations:
- Nothing at all, and it has never shown. Google has not found your website, or something is telling it to stay away. Start with If Google Cannot Find Your Website at All.
- Nothing now, but it used to show. Something has changed. Go to If It Used to Show and Has Now Disappeared.
- Your pages are listed, but searches for your name or your services miss them. Google can see your website, so your problem is ranking. Go to If Google Has Your Pages but Ranks Others Above You.
- Your website shows up, but your business is missing from Google Maps. That is your Business Profile, which is a separate listing. Go to If Your Business Is Missing From Google Maps.
Two quick searches and three questions narrow “not showing on Google” down to one of four problems.
If Google Cannot Find Your Website at All
If neither search turns up anything, work through these in order, starting with the quickest to check.
It Is Brand New
Google finds most websites by itself, by following links from pages it already knows about, so you do not need to submit yours. What Google does not do is promise anything. It says it does not guarantee that it will crawl, index or show any page. Its starter guide says some changes take effect within a few hours, while others take several months.
You can give it a head start. Set up Google Search Console, submit a sitemap and use the URL Inspection tool to request indexing for your home page. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after a request, and that asking does not guarantee your page will be included. Links from websites Google already visits, such as local directories, suppliers and organisations you belong to, give it more ways to find you.
Your Website Builder Is Hiding It
Most website builders have a way of keeping a site out of search engines. Several also keep sites hidden while they are on a trial, unpublished or still on the builder’s own web address. If you built your website on one of these platforms, or someone built it for you, check this next.
| Platform | What Keeps It Out of Google | Where to Check |
|---|
| WordPress | The “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box is ticked | Settings > Reading, next to Search engine visibility |
| Squarespace | The site is set to Private or Password Protected (trial sites stay hidden while their password is on), a page has “Hide page from search results” switched on, or crawlers are blocked across the whole site | The Site availability panel, each page’s SEO tab and Settings > Crawlers |
| Wix | “Let search engines index your site” is switched off, or the pages have not been published | SEO & GEO > Tools and settings > SEO Settings |
| Shopify | Private mode, which used to be called password protection, is still on. A store on a trial has to finish setting up before it can be turned off. | Online Store > Preferences > Store access |
| GoDaddy Airo | The site is still on its default airoapp.ai address, which GoDaddy keeps out of search results even once it is published | Connect your own domain, then publish |
| Canva | “Search engine visibility” is switched off | Publish > Settings > Site tab |
Platforms change their menus from time to time, so I checked each of these against the platform’s own help pages in October 2026.
A Setting Is Telling Google to Stay Out
Two instructions affect whether your pages appear in Google, and they work in different ways:
- A noindex tag tells Google not to show a page in its results. When Google next crawls the page and finds the tag, it drops the page from its results, even if other websites link to it.
- A robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of a website not to crawl. It is not a way of keeping a page out of Google, and a blocked page can still appear in results, just without a description.
They can also trip each other up. A noindex tag only works if Google is allowed to crawl the page and read it, so a page that is blocked in robots.txt and tagged noindex can still turn up.
On WordPress, a single box can noindex an entire website. Under Settings > Reading there is an option called “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”. Ticking it while a website is being built makes sense, because nobody wants a half-finished site in Google. The trouble starts when nobody unticks it at launch.
That is exactly what happened to one of my clients. Their website had Yoast SEO installed, but the problem was not in Yoast at all. The “Discourage search engines” box had been ticked while the website was being developed and was never unticked, so every page was asking Google to stay away. Google did as it was asked.
Unticking the box took seconds. Getting back into Google took months, because Google was essentially indexing the website from scratch.
If that box is clear, check your SEO plugin as well. Plugins such as Yoast can hide a whole type of content from search, such as every page or every product, with a single switch.
Something Is Blocking Google at the Door
Security settings can turn Google away without anyone noticing, because the website still works perfectly for you and your customers.
Another client had set up their own hosting and blocked every visitor from outside the UK. Plenty of hosts and security tools offer this, and for a business that only works in the UK it sounds sensible. The catch is where Google visits from. Google says the default IP addresses its crawler uses appear to be based in the USA. It crawls from some addresses outside the USA as well, but nothing says any of them will be British. So the website worked for everyone in the UK and, as far as Google was concerned, did not exist.
Once the block came off, Google could see the website again. Getting back into the results still took months, because, as with the WordPress box, Google was essentially indexing it from scratch.
If you block other countries, or use a firewall or security plugin that blocks bots, make sure it lets genuine search engine crawlers through. Google publishes the IP addresses its crawlers use, and explains how to check that a visitor claiming to be Googlebot really is. A well set up firewall can use that to let genuine crawlers through and still block unwanted visitors. To see what Google gets when it visits, run the live test in Search Console’s URL Inspection tool. If it cannot fetch your page, something is in the way.
Recovery Can Take Months
Fixing the cause is often the quick part. Google still has to come back, crawl the website and decide what to index. Its own guidance says that can take anything from a few hours to several months. That is no reason to panic if a week goes by with nothing to show for it. It is a very good reason to catch these problems early, which is what Search Console is for.
If It Used to Show and Has Now Disappeared
If your website used to appear and now does not, something has changed, and it is usually something dull. Check these in order.
Check It Still Loads
Before anything else, make sure your website actually loads, and that your domain name and your hosting or website builder plan are paid up. It sounds too obvious to bother with, but it happens far more often than you would think.
When I checked the 3,831 websites linked from 6,763 independent Wirral Google Business Profiles, 326 of them, about one in 12, were broken. In nearly two-thirds of those, the domain no longer existed (49%) or the website builder plan had ended (16%). The full study has the rest.
Google does not wait long once a website stops working. It says network and DNS errors have quick, negative effects on whether it can crawl a page, and that indexed pages it cannot reach are removed from its index within days.
A Rebuild or a Move
If your website disappeared after a redesign, a change of domain or a move to a different platform or host, the likely cause is old page addresses that now lead nowhere. Every address that changes needs a permanent redirect to its replacement. Without one, the old pages drop out and the new ones start from scratch. A rebuild or a new host can also bring in the settings described above, so check the WordPress box and any country blocking or firewall rules as well. I have written a whole guide to redesigning your website without losing your Google rankings, so I will not repeat it here.
A Hacked Website
If your website has been hacked, Google may show a warning next to it in the results, or a warning page before visitors reach it. It also tries to keep hacked content out of its results altogether. Search Console’s Security issues report shows whether Google has found a problem. If it has, clean the website up, then request a review from the same report.
A Manual Action
Google catches most spam automatically, but sometimes a person at Google reviews a website, decides it breaks Google’s spam policies and applies what Google calls a manual action. That can push some or all of a website’s pages down the results or remove them altogether. The Manual actions report in Search Console tells you whether it has happened. If it has, the report explains what Google found and how to ask for a review once you have fixed it. If you would rather hand it over, I offer Google penalty recovery.
It Has Dropped, Not Disappeared
If the site: search still lists your pages, your website has not gone anywhere. It has dropped down the results. Google lists algorithm updates and changes in what people search for among the reasons traffic falls, alongside technical problems. A competitor may simply have built better pages than yours. That is a ranking problem rather than a missing website, and the next section is for you.
If Google Has Your Pages but Ranks Others Above You
This one is good news in disguise. If the site: search lists your pages, Google has found your website, can read it and has indexed it. The problem is ranking. It might look like a website that shows up for the business name but not for searches such as “boiler repair wallasey” or “wedding florist west kirby”. Those are the searches customers make before they know you exist.
If you do not show up even for your own name, it is the same problem in a stronger form. Google has your pages, but it ranks other results above them, such as directories, social media profiles or businesses with a similar name.
Most of the fixes earlier in this guide will not help with that. What does help:
- A page for each service, in your customers’ words. If you are an electrician who does rewires, EV chargers and fault finding, each of those deserves its own page that says so plainly. A single services page that lists everything has to compete for every search at once.
- Pages worth ranking. Prices or how your pricing works, examples of your work, the areas you cover and answers to the questions customers ask before they ring you.
- Other websites mentioning you. Google says one of the ways it judges quality is whether other prominent websites link to or refer to a page. For a local business, that means directories, suppliers, local press and organisations you belong to.
- Patience. Changes can take months to show, and nobody can promise where you will end up.
If you are not sure whether your real problem is being found or what happens once people find you, I have written about telling the two apart in how to get more enquiries.
If Your Business Is Missing From Google Maps
Your website and your Google Business Profile are separate listings. One can show up while the other does not, and fixing your website will not fix your profile.
If your business does not appear on Google Maps at all, check three things:
- Is the profile verified? Google says only verified businesses can show their details on Maps and Search.
- Is it new? Google says rankings for new businesses can take up to a month to appear.
- Has it been suspended? A suspended profile does not show to other people on Google until the problem is resolved.
If your profile is live but you do not show up when people nearby search for what you do, that is local ranking. Google says it ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. Prominence means how well known a business is, based partly on how many websites link to it and how many reviews it has. It also says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up. I explain how that works in practice in how to show up for near me searches, and if you would rather hand it over, I offer Google Business Profile optimisation.
How to Check All of This in Google Search Console
Google Search Console is free, and it is the one place where Google tells you directly what it sees on your website. Without it, you are guessing. Before I rebuilt Haylo Theatre’s website, people searching for the company by name struggled to find it. Nobody had set up Search Console, so there was no way of seeing why. I connected it when the new website launched.
If you do one thing after reading this, set it up, and set it up in your own name rather than your web designer’s, so you keep access whoever looks after the website.
Three parts of Search Console answer most of the questions in this guide:
- URL Inspection shows whether a particular page is in Google. Its live test shows what Google gets when it visits that page right now, and you can request indexing from here. Request it once, because asking again will not speed it up.
- The Page indexing report lists the pages Google has not indexed and gives a reason for each. The table below explains the main ones.
- Manual actions and Security issues show whether a person at Google has penalised your website or Google has found signs of hacking. If both say no issues detected, you can rule out a manual penalty and any security problem Google has spotted.
| What Search Console Says | What It Means | What to Do |
|---|
| Any reason mentioning noindex | A tag or setting is telling Google not to show the page | If the page should be found, untick the setting or remove the tag |
| Any reason mentioning robots.txt | Your robots.txt file tells Google not to crawl the page | If the page should be found, remove the rule |
| Crawled – currently not indexed | Google read the page and chose not to index it for now | Make the page more useful and less like your other pages. Google says there is no need to resubmit it. |
| Discovered – currently not indexed | Google knows the page exists but has not crawled it yet, usually because crawling it then might have overloaded your website | Usually patience, plus links to the page from your main pages |
| Duplicate without user-selected canonical | Google sees the page as a copy of another one | Make the pages genuinely different, or merge them |
| Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user | Google disagrees with you about which version is the main one | Check the pages really are different, and that your own links point to the version you want |
| Alternate page with proper canonical tag, or Page with redirect | Working as intended | Nothing, if that is what you meant to happen |
| Not found (404) | The page does not exist | Restore it, redirect it to its replacement, or leave it if it was meant to go |
| Soft 404 | The page looks empty or missing, but does not return a proper error | Add real content, or let it return a proper 404 |
| Server error (5xx) | Your server failed when Google visited | Check with your host |
| Blocked due to unauthorized request (401), or Blocked due to access forbidden (403) | Google was turned away, often by a login, firewall or security setting | Check password protection, firewalls, country blocking and security plugins |
If you see errors in the 400s or 500s and want to know what each one means, I have explained every HTTP status code in plain English.
When Google Chooses to Leave a Page Out
Some of the reasons in that table are Google’s judgement rather than a setting you can switch off, such as Crawled – currently not indexed and the two duplicate reasons. In those cases, Google has reached the page perfectly well and decided to leave it out.
On small business websites, a common culprit is pages that are too alike. Location pages are the classic example: a page for every nearby town with the same wording and only the place name changed. When pages are that similar, Google picks one as the main version and treats the rest as duplicates.
The fix is to make each page genuinely different and useful, or to merge the pages that do not need to exist separately. Resubmitting the same page will not change Google’s mind, and Google says there is no need to resubmit a page marked Crawled – currently not indexed.
What Will Not Fix It
Some things feel like progress but will not get you into Google:
- Paying for Google Ads. Ads appear separately from the ordinary results and stop when you stop paying. Google says it does not accept payment to crawl a website more often or rank it higher.
- Paying someone to submit your website to Google. You do not need to submit it at all, and Search Console does the useful part for free.
- Requesting indexing over and over. There is a quota, and Google says requesting a recrawl again does not get a page crawled any faster.
- Worrying about crawl budget. Google’s crawl budget guide is written mainly for very large websites, with a million or more pages, or ten thousand or more that change every day. A typical small business website is nowhere near either size.
- Anyone who guarantees a top ranking. Google says no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google.
When It Is Worth Getting Help
Most of what is in this guide is free to check and free to fix, and I would rather you tried it yourself first. It is worth bringing someone in when:
- Search Console shows reasons you cannot explain.
- The problem started after a rebuild or a move.
- You have fixed the obvious things and months have gone by with nothing to show for it.
