Why is my website not showing on Google? A checklist

The question usually arrives a week after a redesign or a move to a new host: why is my website not showing on Google when it was there last month? Before you pay anyone to answer it, run the checks below in order. They take about twenty minutes, they need no tools you do not already have, and they split the problem into two very different situations. One is a fault, and a fault is fixed in an afternoon. The other is a gap, and our SEO work exists because a gap takes months. Knowing which one you have is the whole point of this page.

Invisible, or just not ranking?

Type your business name into Google, exactly as it appears on your site. Three outcomes.

If your site is the first result, Google has it. You are not invisible. What you are missing is rankings for the words customers use when they do not know your name, and that is section 6. If your site appears but a directory or a Facebook page sits above it for your own name, Google has it but does not trust it much yet, usually because it is new or thin, and section 7 covers how long that lasts. If your site does not appear at all for its own name, something is stopping Google, and it is almost always one of six things.

The site: test, and what zero means

Search for site:yourdomain.com.au with no space after the colon. Google returns every page it holds from your domain.

A count in the right ballpark means indexing is working. A handful of pages when you have fifty means most of the site is being kept out. Zero means Google holds nothing from your domain, and one of the blockers below applies to everything.

If Search Console is connected, the Pages report gives the reason for every page Google left out. If it is not connected, connecting it is the first real fix on this list, because every check below is guesswork without it.

The six blockers, in the order they are usually the cause

These are ordered by how often they turn out to be the answer on sites we have taken over, not by how technical they sound.

• The “discourage search engines” box is ticked. WordPress, Settings, Reading. A developer ticks it on the staging copy so Google does not index a half-built site, then launches without unticking it. One click.
• A noindex tag carried over from staging. Same idea, set by an SEO plugin rather than WordPress. View the page source and search for noindex. If it is there on your home page, that is your answer.
• robots.txt is blocking the site. Visit yourdomain.com.au/robots.txt. A line reading Disallow: / under User-agent: * tells every crawler to leave. It should not be there on a live site.
• A migration with no redirects. The site moved hosts or changed its URL structure and every old address now returns a 404. Google’s copy of your site points at pages that no longer exist, and the new pages have nothing pointing at them.
• A canonical tag pointing somewhere else. The canonical is the line that tells Google which address is the real one. If it points at the old domain, the staging domain or the developer’s own server, Google indexes that instead of you.
• The sitemap is missing or erroring. Visit yourdomain.com.au/sitemap_index.xml or /sitemap.xml. A 404 does not stop indexing on its own, but it removes Google’s map of what to crawl and it is often the visible symptom of something worse, which is what the next section is about.

What we found on a live store mid-audit

On 11 September 2026 we were partway through an organic search audit of a WooCommerce store when the sitemap started returning 404. Not the index only; every child sitemap with it. We checked the 26 category pages, which on that site sit at the root of the domain. All 26 were broken. Sixteen were redirecting, with a permanent 301, to a .png file in the uploads folder. The other ten returned 404. The home page, every product and every static page kept serving normally.

Nothing had been deleted. The categories were still in the database with the same slugs. A plugin update had been pending, and the most likely cause is WordPress losing its rewrite rules after that update ran, which is a known failure and a quiet one. The fix is a person logging in, going to Settings, Permalinks, and pressing Save. Nothing else.

Nobody knew. The products were fine, so sales continued. Meanwhile every category page, the landing page for the words people actually search with, was telling Google it had permanently become a picture. Left alone for a month, that is the category rankings gone.

The check is one URL. Open your sitemap now, then two category or service pages from it. If all three load, you are not this case.

Google Business Profile not showing in search

For a local business, the map result matters more than the website, and it fails for its own reasons. If the website is fine and the Google Business Profile not showing in search is the actual complaint, check these five in order.

• Not verified. An unverified profile does not appear. Google needs a postcard, a video or a phone call before it publishes anything. Log in and check the status.
• Suspended. A profile can be suspended for a business name stuffed with keywords, a residential address on a storefront listing, or a category that does not match the website. The profile dashboard says so; the public search does not.
• Wrong primary category. The primary category decides which searches the profile can appear for. “Business service” instead of “Plumber” means invisible for plumbing.
• Service area set wrong. A tradie working out of home should hide the address and set a service area. A shop should show the address. Get them the wrong way round and the profile shows in neither place.
• A duplicate listing. An old profile, made years ago by a previous owner or a marketing company, competing with the new one for the same name and address. Google splits the reviews and the trust between them. Claim and merge the old one.

Ranking for your name and nothing else

This is the most common situation and it is not a fault. Google has your site, shows it when someone types your name, and shows it for nothing else. The owner asks: do I need SEO for my small business, or is something broken? Nothing is broken. The site has no reason yet to appear for “plumber Busselton” ahead of a site that has been there for eight years with two hundred reviews and a page for every job type.

A site with five pages of thin text will not rank for anything competitive, and no plugin changes that. What changes it is pages that answer the actual searches, a Business Profile with recent reviews, and time. Whether that is worth paying for depends on how many people in your area search for what you sell each month: for twenty searches a month it is not, for a trade in a regional city it usually is. Tracking your own rankings is how you find out, and SolSEO starts on a free plan with no card for exactly this reason.

How long a new site actually takes

A brand new domain with a new site on it is usually indexed inside a few days once it is submitted through Search Console, and takes weeks to months to rank for anything beyond its own name. A redesigned site on an existing domain, moved properly with redirects, normally keeps its positions and settles inside a few weeks. A moved site with no redirects starts from close to zero and takes as long as a new one.

Those are ranges from our own stores and the sites we have moved, not promises, and the range is wide because the competition for each search is different.

The short version

Search your name, run the site: test, open your sitemap and two pages from it, and check the discourage box in WordPress. That is twenty minutes and it finds nearly every fault on this list. If everything loads and you are still only found by name, the problem is not a fault and it needs pages and time rather than a fix. If you want a second pair of eyes on either, send us the domain and we will tell you which one you have. The audit and fix list we sell for this is described on our SEO page, and it starts with these same checks.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my website not showing up on Google search?

Either Google is being stopped from indexing it, or it is indexed and simply not ranking. Search your business name to tell which. If the site appears, it is a ranking gap. If it does not, check the discourage setting in WordPress, the robots.txt file and the sitemap first.

How do I get my website to show up on Google?

Connect Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and request indexing on your home page. Then make sure nothing on the site says noindex and that your robots.txt does not block crawlers. A new domain usually appears for its own name within days once that is done.

How long does it take for a new website to appear on Google?

A new site submitted through Search Console is usually indexed within a few days. Ranking for searches other than your own business name takes weeks to months, depending on how many other sites compete for those words. Moving a site without redirects resets that clock.

Why does my Google Business Profile not show up?

The profile is unverified, suspended, set to the wrong primary category, or has its service area and address configured the wrong way round for the kind of business it is. A duplicate listing for the same business can also split it. Log into the profile and check the status line first.

Do I need SEO if my website already shows up for my business name?

Appearing for your own name means Google has your site. It does not mean customers who do not know your name will find you. Whether that gap is worth paying to close depends on how many people search for what you sell each month. Track a few searches first and decide from the numbers.