Your website is not showing up on Google because Google hasn't indexed it or because it ranks too low for anyone to find it, and a 10-second search tells you which. Type site:yourdomain.com into Google. A list of your pages means you're in the index and the problem is ranking. An empty page means Google has nothing from your site, and the cause is often something you can find and fix yourself in an afternoon.
The check comes from Google itself: it's step one on the Search Console help page for missing sites.
How do you check if Google has your site?
Search Google for your own domain:
site:yourdomain.com
Turn SafeSearch off first, since Google's help page says it might be filtering your results. Type it as Google's examples do, with no space after the colon. If your site loads at both www and the bare domain, search both: Google's documentation for the operator says site:https://www.example.com doesn't return the same results as site:https://example.com/.
Then read the result:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| A list of your pages | Indexed. If you don't appear for real searches, it's a ranking problem. |
| Your addresses with no description under them | Possibly a robots.txt block: Google says a blocked page's URL can still appear in results, without a description. |
| Some pages, but not the ones you care about | Partial indexing. A site can be in the index while some of its pages aren't. |
| Nothing | Google has none of your pages. Work through the six causes below. |
Treat it as a smoke test: Google says the list "is not always exhaustive," so the count proves nothing. URL Inspection, covered below, gives the definitive answer for a single page.
Why would Google have nothing from your site?
Google's missing-page help names all six of these causes. We check them cheapest first.
1. The site is new
Nothing is broken. Google's help puts the total time to crawl and index a new page at "anywhere from a day or two to a few weeks, typically." Google finds pages mainly through links from pages it already crawled, and its sitemap guide warns Googlebot might not discover your pages if no other sites link to them. A sitemap and a link from a supplier or trade association give it a way in.
2. robots.txt tells Google to stay out
robots.txt is a plain text file at your site's root that tells crawlers which pages they may visit. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for this pair:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
That tells every crawler that follows the file, Googlebot included, to stay off every page. Developers sometimes add it to a staging site, and it can survive launch. Delete the Disallow: / line. On builders such as Wix you may not be able to edit the file; Google says your platform "might expose a search settings page" for the job.
3. A noindex rule is still switched on
noindex is a rule telling Google to leave a page out; once Google finds it, Google "will drop that page entirely from Google Search results." View your homepage's source (right-click, View Page Source) and search for "noindex". A tag like <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> means Google has been told to stay out, which is why this check is Step 0 of our website launch checklist.
On WordPress, open Settings, then Reading. WordPress's documentation says ticking "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" adds a noindex tag, so untick it and save.
Two catches. A noindex can also arrive as an HTTP header called X-Robots-Tag, which page source never shows; URL Inspection reports both kinds. And if robots.txt blocks the page too, Google can't see the noindex: its documentation says rules on a page blocked from crawling "will not be found and will therefore be ignored." Fix both.
4. A password or login stands in the way
Google's technical requirements are blunt: "If a page is made private, such as requiring a log-in to view it, Googlebot will not crawl it." Staging passwords and password-protected coming-soon screens do this to whole sites. Open your site in a private browser window, and if a password prompt appears, switch the protection off in your host's settings.
5. You searched the wrong address
After a move to a new domain or to https, Google may have indexed a different version from the one you searched. Google's missing-page help names 301 redirects (permanent forwarding from the old address to the new one) as the fix for a move done with mistakes. In URL Inspection, the Google-selected canonical line shows which version Google treats as the main one.
6. A manual action
A manual action is a penalty a human reviewer at Google applies when pages break Google's spam policies. With one in place, Google says, "some or all of that site will not be shown in Google search results." The Manual actions report in Search Console lists any, with guidance on fixing them. Check it first on a domain you bought or inherited: Google warns that a site can arrive "with existing manual actions filed against it."
What does Search Console show that the search can't?
Google says you don't have to sign up for Search Console to be included in its results; you sign up to learn why you aren't included. Search Console is free and works with a Google Account on any email address (no Gmail required).
URL Inspection checks one address at a time. Enter your homepage's full URL and the verdict at the top says whether the URL is on Google. Under Page indexing, three lines map to the causes above: Crawl allowed? (robots.txt), Page fetch (whether the page loaded or returned an error such as a 404) and Indexing allowed? (noindex). Test live URL adds a screenshot of the page as Google's inspection tool sees it.
The Page indexing report covers the whole site, grouping unindexed pages by the reason Google gives, with a Source value that "indicates whether this is probably something you can fix."
Fix the cause, then submit the sitemap
Order matters. A sitemap (a file listing the pages you want crawled) tells Google where your pages are, and Google's Sitemaps report help says there's "no guarantee" that a URL found in one "has been or will be crawled or indexed." The same page names a robots.txt rule and a noindex as ways to keep Google off URLs a sitemap lists. The block wins.
- Find the cause with the checks above or URL Inspection.
- Remove it.
- Submit your sitemap in Search Console's Sitemaps report if your platform hasn't; Google says many hosting services do it for you. Google's sitemap guide says a small, well-linked site (about 500 pages or fewer) might not need one.
- Request indexing for your homepage and most important pages in URL Inspection. There's a daily limit, and Google says repeat recrawl requests for the same URL "won't get it crawled any faster."
- Allow at least a week before assuming a problem, as Google's help advises.
The Google block check, yours to copy
Paste it into your tracker and work top to bottom.
THE GOOGLE BLOCK CHECK (narsilcreative.com)
10 SECONDS
[ ] SafeSearch off, search site:yourdomain.com (and www, if used)
Pages listed: you're indexed. Jump to PARTIAL.
Nothing: keep going.
FIVE MINUTES, NO LOGIN NEEDED
[ ] Site only weeks old? It may just be new
[ ] yourdomain.com/robots.txt has no "Disallow: /"
[ ] Homepage source has no "noindex"
[ ] WordPress: Settings > Reading, "Discourage search engines" unticked
[ ] Private browser window: no password prompt
IN SEARCH CONSOLE (FREE)
[ ] URL Inspection on the homepage: "URL is on Google"?
[ ] Crawl allowed? Page fetch? Indexing allowed?
[ ] Google-selected canonical matches the address you use
[ ] Manual actions report is empty
FIX, IN THIS ORDER
[ ] Remove the block
[ ] Submit the sitemap (if your platform hasn't)
[ ] Request indexing: homepage and top pages, once each
[ ] Wait at least a week, then rerun the 10-second check
PARTIAL
[ ] Page indexing report: read the reason for each missing page
[ ] "Crawled - currently not indexed" on pages that matter: improve the page
What if only some of your pages are missing?
Some missing pages are normal. Google's Page indexing help says "Don't expect every URL on your site to be indexed," since some URLs are duplicates or carry no meaningful information, and asks only that "the key pages on your site are indexed."
Two statuses there look alarming. Discovered - currently not indexed means Google knows the URL and hasn't crawled it yet, typically because crawling it then "was expected to overload the site." Crawled - currently not indexed means Google read the page and left it out for now: it "may or may not be indexed in the future," and there's "no need to resubmit this URL for crawling." Google's How Search Works guide lists low content quality among the common indexing issues. When your service pages sit in that second group, the fix is a better page, not another request.
If the site: search lists your pages and you still can't find yourself, ranking is the job. Start with pages ranking 4th to 15th: striking distance keywords are the cheapest wins on a site Google already trusts. If Google has you and ChatGPT doesn't, that chain has its own break points, covered in why your business isn't showing up in ChatGPT.
When can you fix this yourself?
Most of the time. A new site needs patience and a link or two. A robots.txt line, a noindex tag, a WordPress checkbox or a password screen is a few minutes' work for whoever holds the login. You don't need to hire anyone for those, us included. Nobody can buy you a faster crawl, either: Google's How Search Works guide says Google "doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, or rank it higher. If anyone tells you otherwise, they're wrong."
Get help when the cause sits deeper:
- Many important pages stuck at
Crawled - currently not indexed, which is usually a content job. - A manual action, especially on a domain you bought or inherited.
- A domain move or https switch that left redirects and canonical versions tangled.
- A JavaScript-built site whose live-test screenshot comes back missing its text.
Those four are technical foundations work, the first line of our SEO services, because a page Google can't index can't rank.