Why is my website not showing on Google? 8 common reasons

Your site is live, but it does not come up on Google even when you search for your company name? The problem is usually one of eight things, and most of them can be fixed.

You had your site built, it went live, but when you search on Google it is not there. This is more common than you might think, and the cause is usually simple. Start with a quick test: type site:yourdomain.com into Google. If no results come up, your site is not in Google's index. If results come up but you do not appear in searches, the problem is ranking. The two have different fixes.

1. The site is very new

Google needs time to find and crawl a new site. That can take a few days or a few weeks. Rather than waiting, you can speed things up: add your site to Search Console and submit your sitemap.

2. Search Console has not been set up

Search Console is the free tool that tells you how Google sees your site. Which pages have been indexed, which have not and why: it is all there. Without it you are walking in the dark. You can set it up yourself or get help from us.

3. The site is closed to search engines

While a site is being built it is closed to search engines so that the half-finished version does not get indexed. When it goes live, switching that setting back can be forgotten. In WordPress it is the "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" box; in other systems the robots.txt file or a noindex tag does the same. A single setting can make the whole site invisible.

4. There is no sitemap

A sitemap (sitemap.xml) is the list of your site's pages that you hand to Google. You will be crawled without one, but more slowly and less completely. A good platform generates this file automatically and updates it with every new page.

5. The content is too thin or copied

Google has no reason to rank a site that has two sentences on each page. Text copied from other sites does not work either, because Google shows the place where the same text was first published. You need a separate page for each of your services, with original copy on it that answers the customer's questions.

6. You are checking the wrong keywords

It is not realistic for a new site to appear for one-word searches like "web design" or "lawyer". For local, specific searches like "divorce lawyer Gaziosmanpaşa", your chances are far better. That is how your customers mostly search anyway.

7. The site is slow or broken on mobile

Google judges sites by their mobile version first. A site that loads slowly on a phone, with text you cannot read and buttons you cannot tap, falls behind in the rankings. You can test your site with Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool.

8. You do not have a Google Business Profile

Someone searching for your company name wants to see the map, phone number and reviews on the right-hand side. That box comes from your Google Business Profile, not from your website. Most local searches also start with map results. We explained how to add yours in our step-by-step guide.

Where should you start?

1. Use the site: search to check whether you are in the index.
2. Set up Search Console and submit the sitemap.
3. Fix the pages that show errors in the coverage report.
4. Strengthen the copy on your service pages.
5. Open your Google Business Profile and fill it in.

The first three are technical fixes and their effect shows quickly. Climbing for competitive keywords, on the other hand, takes steady SEO work. We gave an honest account of how long that takes in a separate post.