Quick answer: A website is missing from Google for one of four reasons, best checked in this order. Google has not indexed it yet, which is normal for the first week or more of a new site or page. Something is blocking it, most often a "noindex" setting or a robots.txt rule left over from the build. Google cannot find it, because nothing links to it and no sitemap has been submitted. Or it is on Google but too far down for the words you searched, because the page does not say what people search for or few other sites point to it. Two checks tell them apart: search Google for site: followed by your web address, then inspect your home page in Google Search Console. The map results are a separate system: they come from a Google Business Profile, not from your website.
This page sets out what Google publishes about its own search, each source opened on 27 October 2026, and what this site's own Search Console showed in its first weeks. Nothing here can promise a place in the results, and Google says so of itself: it "doesn't guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve your page" (Google Search Central).
Is my website on Google at all?
Search Google for site: followed by your domain, with no space, for example site:yourbusiness.co.uk. If pages from your site come up, it is in Google's index, and your problem is where it ranks, not whether it is there. Google's starter guide puts it plainly: "If you see results pointing to your site, you're in the index" (SEO Starter Guide).
Two cautions before you read anything into the result:
- The list is not complete. Google says the list a site: search returns "is not always exhaustive", so one page missing from it is not proof the page is missing from Google (Google Search Central). To check a single page, search for its full address: Search Console's help calls that the definitive test of whether a URL is appearing (Search Console Help).
- Your phone is not everyone's phone. Google picks results using "hundreds of factors", including "the user's location, language, and device" (Google Search Central). One search, from one place, says little about what customers see.
How do I see what Google sees of my website?
With Google Search Console, Google's own tool for site owners: once you have proved you own the site, it tells you, page by page, whether Google has indexed it and, if not, why. Proving ownership means adding a record at the company your domain is registered with, or a tag or file on the site itself; covering the whole domain needs the domain record (Search Console Help). Whoever built your site can set it up, but the account should be yours.
Two parts of it answer this question:
- URL Inspection. Paste in an address and it says either "URL is on Google" or "URL is not on Google", with the reason. Three lines matter most: Crawl allowed? (whether a robots.txt rule blocks Google), Indexing allowed? (whether the page asks not to be indexed) and Page fetch (whether Google could get the page from your server at all). It also has the Request indexing button (Search Console Help).
- The Page indexing report. Every address Google knows on your site, indexed or not, with a reason for each one that is not. A long "not indexed" list is not a fault in itself: "Don't expect every URL on your site to be indexed" (Search Console Help). What matters is whether the pages you want found are on it.
And "URL is on Google" only means the page is eligible: it "doesn't actually guarantee that your page will appear in Search results" (Search Console Help). Indexed and ranking are two different problems.
Which cause is it?
Match what you see to the left-hand column. The status names in bold are the ones Search Console uses.
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| URL is not on Google, and the site or page is new | Google has not got to it yet | Submit a sitemap, request indexing once, and give it a few weeks |
| Discovered - currently not indexed | Google knows the address but has not fetched the page yet; it rescheduled the visit | Wait, and make sure the page is linked from your menu or other pages |
| Crawled - currently not indexed | Google fetched the page and has not added it, for now | No need to resubmit. Ask whether the page says something useful that your other pages do not |
| URL marked 'noindex' | The page itself asks not to be in Google | Remove the setting, if the page should be found |
| URL blocked by robots.txt | Your robots.txt file stops Google fetching the page | Remove the rule that blocks it |
| Page with redirect | The address forwards to another one | Usually nothing: inspect the address it forwards to instead |
| Not found (404) | The page did not exist when Google asked for it | Fix the link to it, or redirect the old address to its replacement |
| A site: search shows your pages, but a search for your service does not | Indexed, but ranking too low for that search | See why a site shows for its name and not its service, below |
| Your website shows up, but not in the map results | The map results come from Business Profiles, not websites | See the Maps question below |
Sources: what each status means is from Search Console's Page indexing report help; "no need to resubmit" for crawled pages is Google's own wording there.
Is my website too new to be on Google yet?
It may be, if it went live in the last few weeks. Google says "It can take a week or so for Google to start crawling and indexing a new page or site" (Search Console Help), and that after you ask, "Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks" (Google Search Central).
Asking again does not speed it up: "requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL won't get it crawled any faster" (same source). Making the site easy to find does help, which is the third cause below. A site live for months that still does not show is not too new.
What does a new website look like in Search Console?
Mostly "not indexed", and at first that is normal. Here is what this site's own Search Console showed, from the owner's screenshots of the reports, recorded the same days:
- 3 October 2026: the sitemap was submitted. Search Console fetched it the next day with the status Success.
- 6 October 2026: the Page indexing report listed four pages as indexed, last crawled in September, before the service pages were added. Nine of the twelve addresses in the sitemap were not indexed yet. Three more were listed as Page with redirect: the http and www versions of the home page, which forward to the one main address, as they should. Those three needed no fix.
- 7 October 2026: URL Inspection showed one of the missing service pages as indexed, crawled two days earlier and found through the sitemap and a link from an article. The Page indexing report from the day before had not listed it.
Two things to take from it. A redirect listed as "not indexed" can be the site working correctly, not a fault. And the Page indexing report runs behind: Google's help says a page shown as indexed in URL Inspection but missing from the report "was probably indexed recently, and will appear in the Page indexing report soon" (Search Console Help). Before deciding a page is missing, inspect its address.
Is something on my website blocking Google?
Possibly, and on a site that has been live for a while it is the first cause to rule out, because one setting can hide every page. There are two kinds of block.
A noindex setting tells Google not to index a page. Once Google sees it, it "will drop that page entirely from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it" (Google Search Central). It is useful while a site is being built and easy to forget at launch. WordPress, for one, has a box under Settings > Reading called "Discourage search engines from indexing this site", and ticking it adds a noindex rule to the site's pages (WordPress). Other site builders have their own version of the same switch.
A robots.txt rule lives in a file at your domain followed by /robots.txt, which you can open in a browser. It tells crawlers which addresses they may fetch. Google says it is "used primarily to manage crawler traffic" and "is not a mechanism for keeping a web page out of Google": a blocked page's address can still appear in results, "but the search result won't have a description" (Google Search Central). A line reading Disallow: / that applies to every crawler shuts Google out of the whole site; it is what WordPress served, up to version 5.2, when that same box was ticked on a site installed at the domain's root with no robots.txt file of its own (same WordPress page).
The two can cancel each other out. If robots.txt blocks a page, Google never fetches it, so "the crawler will never see the noindex rule" (Google Search Central). Google also lists two plainer reasons a page is not crawled: it "may not be accessible without logging in to the site", or there are "Problems with the server handling the site" (Google Search Central).
To check, inspect the page in URL Inspection and read Crawl allowed?, Indexing allowed? and Page fetch. If one says no, you have found the cause; once it is fixed, request indexing once.
Can Google find my website?
Only if something points to it. "Google primarily finds pages through links from other pages it already crawled" (SEO Starter Guide), so a new site that nothing links to, with no sitemap submitted, gives Google no way in.
There are three ways to make it findable:
- Submit a sitemap. A sitemap is a file listing the pages you want found. Google names "Your site is new and has few external links to it" as one of the cases it helps, though it adds that a sitemap "doesn't guarantee that all the items in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed" (Google Search Central). Submit it in Search Console's Sitemaps report. If you do not know where your sitemap is, ask whoever built your site.
- Link every page from your own site. Each page you want found should be reachable through ordinary links in your menu or on other pages. Google asks for links that are crawlable "so that Google can find other pages on your site via the links on your page" (Google Search Essentials).
- Be linked from elsewhere. Real links from places that already know you: a trade body, a directory you belong to, a supplier, a local organisation. Bought links are not this: Google's spam policies name "Buying or selling links for ranking purposes" and "Excessive link exchanges" as link spam (Google Search Central).
Why is my website on Google but so far down the results?
Because being indexed only makes a page eligible: where it appears depends on how well it matches the search, and on how much other sites vouch for it. "The most basic signal that information is relevant is when content contains the same keywords as your search query", and "one of the factors used to determine quality is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content" (How Search works).
So there are two questions to ask of the page you hoped would appear:
- Does it say, in plain words, what people type? Google's advice is to "Use words that people would use to look for your content", and to put them where they count, "such as the title and main heading of a page" (Google Search Essentials). A page about "bespoke joinery" may never match someone typing "fitted wardrobes", however good the work.
- Does anyone else mention you? Links and mentions from other real sites are part of how Google judges a page. They are earned, through work people talk about, memberships and listings that are genuine.
Neither can be bought from Google: it "doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, or rank it higher" (Google Search Central). Nor does either work overnight: some changes "could take several months", and Google suggests you "likely want to wait a few weeks" before judging one (SEO Starter Guide).
Why does my website show up for its name but not for what I do?
Because a search for your business name has one right answer, and a search for what you do has many. Appearing for your name shows the site is indexed and working; for the service, your page competes with every business that offers it, on the match and the vouching above.
To see which searches you appear for, open Search Console's Performance report. It lists the searches (queries), and for each one the impressions, "How many times your site appeared in Search results", the clicks and the average position (Search Console Help). If nearly every query there contains your business name, the people who already know you are finding you, and the people looking for what you do are not.
The usual fix is a page for each service, saying in its title, its main heading and its first lines what the service is and where you offer it, in the words customers use. That is the work a website built to be found is planned around.
Why is my business not on Google Maps when my website is on Google?
Because the map results do not come from websites. Google says "When a customer searches for a business or place near their location, they'll find local results on Google Maps and Search", and those results are Business Profiles, ranked on how well each matches the search, how far it is from the person searching and how well known it is (Business Profile Help). A website does not put a business there on its own, however well it ranks.
That question has its own answer on the free website audit page, and do you need a website if you have a Google Business Profile? explains what each one does and how to make them agree.
What should I check first?
In this order, stopping at the first one that explains it:
- Search for site: and your domain. If your pages appear, skip to step 5.
- Set up Search Console and inspect your home page: read Crawl allowed?, Indexing allowed? and Page fetch.
- Remove any block you find, such as the WordPress "Discourage search engines" box or a Disallow rule in robots.txt, then request indexing once.
- Submit your sitemap, and check that every page you want found is linked from your menu or another page.
- Open the Page indexing report and read the reason beside any page you want found that is not indexed.
- Open the Performance report to see which searches you appear for, and where.
- For the map results, check your Business Profile, which is separate from all of the above.
- Give each change a few weeks before judging it.
If you would rather someone looked, a free website audit goes through what a search engine can see on your site from outside: each page's title and description, whether anything stops search and AI crawlers reaching it, how it loads on a phone, and your Business Profile as well. It needs no logins, so it cannot see inside your Search Console: the checks above are yours to run beside it. Every finding is checked by a person.
What else do people ask about their website and Google?
Does submitting my website to Google make it appear?
No. A sitemap or an indexing request tells Google the pages exist; it does not decide what happens next. "Submitting a request does not guarantee that the page will appear in the Google Index" (Search Console Help).
Can I pay Google to show my website higher?
Not in the ordinary results or the map results. Google "doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, or rank it higher" (Google Search Central), and "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google" (Business Profile Help). Anyone who promises you a position is guessing.
Could Google have penalised my website?
It is easy to rule out. Search Console's Manual actions report shows whether "a human reviewer at Google has determined" that your pages break its spam policies; with none, it shows a green check mark (Search Console Help). Google says most manual actions "address attempts to manipulate our search index".
When the cause turns out to be the site itself, what it says and how it is built, how we build websites sets out what we make and what we need from you.