Why is my website not showing up on Google?
Your site exists, it works, and it is nowhere on Google. It is almost always one of these three things, and all three take ten minutes to check without any code.
Your site is built. You type your business name into Google and nothing comes up, or your Google Maps listing appears but the website does not. And nobody warned you: no error, no red screen. You are simply not there.
It is almost always one of three things. All three can be checked without knowing how to code.
1. Your site is asking not to be indexed
While a site is being built it is normal to ask search engines to ignore it.
That is done in two separate places: a file called robots.txt and a header
sent by the server. When the site goes live, both have to be removed.
Miss one and the site is perfect and invisible. You can sit like that for weeks.
How to check: type your domain followed by /robots.txt in the browser. If
you see Disallow: /, you are asking not to be indexed. If you see Allow: /,
that part is fine.
I say this from experience: it is the most expensive and most silent mistake there is, and it happens to people who know what they are doing.
2. Your important content is not text
A menu as a PDF, prices inside a photo, opening hours in a picture of the sign. A person understands it. To Google, that page is empty.
How to check: copy the name of one of your products or services and search for it on Google in quotes, along with your business name. If nothing comes up, that content does not exist as text.
3. There is no sitemap and no structured data
A sitemap is the list of your pages, so Google does not have to guess them. Structured data is a block that states unambiguously what you are, where you are and when you open.
How to check: try your domain followed by /sitemap.xml. If it errors, you
either do not have one or it lives somewhere else.
How long does Google take to index a new site?
Days to weeks. If your site went up yesterday, give it time before assuming something is broken — but check the three points above anyway, because if one of them is wrong, time will not fix it.
To speed it up: register with Google Search Console. It is free, it tells you whether Google could crawl your site, and it lets you request indexing.
My Wix or WordPress site does not show on Google
These are the two most common cases, and it is usually point 1. Both platforms have a checkbox to discourage search engines, meant for while the site is unfinished. Plenty of people switch it on at the start and never switch it off.
In WordPress: Settings → Reading → “Discourage search engines”. In Wix, under the SEO settings in the dashboard.
And now there is a second door
More and more people do not ask Google, they ask an AI assistant. That door opens with similar but not identical things, and almost nobody has it ready.
Checked all three and still not showing? Message me on WhatsApp and I will take a look. I do not charge for looking.