Have you recently built a new website only to find you can’t see it in Google search? Or have you been working hard on optimising your website to improve your Google rankings but are finding no trace of your website on Google? Fortunately, there are some answers to why your website may not be showing up on Google.

SEO is complicated and has many technical elements. We will cover the most likely causes of your issue here. However, if it still persists you should talk to an SEO technician who will be able to audit your website to uncover the issue. This article has been updated for 2024 to reflect the latest SEO trends and changes.

Here are 10 reasons why your website may not be showing up in Google search. 

1. Your website is too new

If your website is brand new Google may not even know it exists yet. It can take some time before it will. Google’s bots will need to find your website and crawl it in order to find all your content before they can display your website in search.

To check if Google knows your website exists type site:(your website URL) into the search box. If there is at least one result then Google knows your website exists, no results means it doesn’t.

If it isn’t showing up, or you want to make Google’s bots find your website faster, you need to upload a sitemap. This can be completed via Google Search Console. Go to the URL: yourwebsite.com.au/sitemap.xml and copy the URL presented. Then, in Search Console, go to sitemaps > enter sitemap URL > click submit. Google should soon begin crawling your website.

2. Your website is blocking Google from indexing it

Sometimes your page may be purposefully preventing Google from indexing it. This may be because when the page was originally built, you wished for it to be hidden from search engines. Sometimes this setting is also activated for development purposes.

If Google has indexed your site already, it will let you know in Search Console if there are some pages that aren’t indexable. Look for the “Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’” error.

For WordPress websites, simply untick the “discourage search engines from indexing this site” box in the settings. If this does not allow your pages to be indexed, check in with your developer.

3. Google’s bot is being blocked from crawling your website

Every website has something known as a robots.txt file which tells search engines where they can and can’t go when crawling your website. Any URL blocked by the robots.txt file won’t be able to be crawled by Google.

You will be able to see which pages are blocked by the robots.txt file in Google Search Console. The error “submitted URL blocked by robots.txt” will pop up on blocked pages.

To unblock these pages head over to: yoururl/robots.txt. Any pages with “Disallow: /” in front of it won’t be crawled. You will need to contact your developer or edit the robots.txt file yourself to remove these restrictions.  

4. You don’t have enough authority

Newer websites or websites that have not had SEO work previously completed may simply not have enough authority to rank on Google. Authority is your website’s perceived trustworthiness by Google. This can take some time to build, as you need to prove that your website has quality information that searchers are looking for and will find answers from.

How do you do this if you aren’t ranking in the first place? A combination of SEO strategies such as backlinking, internal linking, and other marketing channels are generally your best bet. Eventually, with some work on your authority, you will see your pages begin ranking higher and higher in Google searches.  

5. Your website hasn’t been built with search engines in mind

Your website could be stunning, filled with awesome features, and be understood by your users, but if it hasn’t also been built with search engines in mind it won’t rank. It is important to consider how Google crawls websites.

For example, the bot will not be able to see anything in an image, even text within an image, instead it will only read the alt-text for the image. So, if you have lots of text within images, the bot will completely miss it, even if your users can read it.

As well as this, the bot tends to crawl the mobile version of your website. So if there are large disparities between the desktop and mobile versions of your website, you may encounter some issues.

Additionally, from 2023 onwards, Google has placed more importance on Core Web Vitals (CWV) metrics, such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. These metrics are now important factors in determining your website’s ranking. Slow loading pages or unstable layouts can cause your website to be penalised in rankings, even if other elements of your SEO are great. Ensuring your site meets Google’s CWV standards will help improve visibility.

6. Your web page isn’t matching search intent

Search intent is the information searchers were looking to find out. For example, if you Google “What is the wingspan of a flying Swallow” you expect to find the answer to your question (or a Monty Python reference). So, if your website is not matching the intent behind the keywords you are trying to rank for, you may not rank for that keyword.

This is something important to consider, especially when naming your business. If your business is named after an animal, for example, you may not necessarily rank well. You can get around this with description words, but you need to be careful here too.

Say you are a videography company called “Giraffe” If you use the name “Giraffe Video” as your business name, you may struggle in search. This is because when someone types “Giraffe Video” into Google, the algorithm registers the search intent as someone looking for a video of a giraffe rather than someone looking for your business.

In recent years, zero-click searches have become more common. A zero-click search arises when Google provides an answer to the search directly on the search results page. This will mean that users will not have to click through to a website to find their answer. It was recently reported that almost 60% of Google searches end without a click in 2024! These often occur when users are looking for quick answers, such as definitions, how-to steps, or trivia. Read our article on zero-clicks to find out what this means for your SEO efforts.

7. You have a Google penalty

Google penalties are very rare, but if you have engaged in some shady SEO practices in the past, then your website may have a Google penalty. This is much harder to detect and may require an SEO technician to diagnose.

If you have been using black hat SEO techniques then it is time to stop before you get a heavy penalty from Google. The only way out of a penalty would be to buy a new domain and start from scratch.

8. There are issues with your content

Having a lot of duplicate content, content stolen from other websites, lots of spelling errors, or missing content can cause issues with your rankings. Sometimes, it could prevent you from appearing at all.

The best way to appear in Google search is to have high-quality content that speaks to your users, answers their questions and encourages them to spend more time on your website. Errors, missing content, or bad content will drive users away. Google can see when this happens, so will penalise your website accordingly.

With the rise of generative AI tools, it’s more important than ever to ensure your content is original and high-quality. AI-generated content can sometimes lead to repetition, poor phrasing, or factual errors, which Google’s algorithms will penalise. Using AI can help speed up content production, but it’s essential to review and edit the output thoroughly to ensure it adds value to your users and stands out as unique in the eyes of Google.

9. You haven’t been doing SEO for long enough

SEO takes time. The fact is, if you have only been doing SEO for a few months you may not yet see results. It can take at a minimum, 3 months of intensive SEO work to see results. It will take even longer to reach the first page on challenging keywords.

If you have been doing some SEO for a few months but really need to see results now, maybe consider doing Google Ads or Social Ads. These see much faster results upfront.

10. There are other technical issues

There is a range of potential issues that could cause your website to not appear in Google search. While the above 9 are common issues you may find that none of them are the issue you are facing. If this is the case, you may need a diagnosis from an SEO technician. They will be able to run a deep dive into your website, including its code, to see if they can uncover the underlying issue. Once they uncover why your website is ranking they will also be able to assist you in fixing the problem.

The team at LINK are experts at diagnosing website problems and can help find the underlying cause behind your website’s absence from Google search. Come have a chat with us about the issue.