Website not showing on Google
If you search for your website on Google and it does not appear, the most likely explanation is one of four things: Google has not crawled your site yet, your site is accidentally blocked from being indexed, your pages have a noindex tag on them, or your site is too new and does not yet have enough content for Google to rank it for anything. All four are fixable. This guide walks through each one in order so you can find exactly what is causing the problem and resolve it.
Check whether Google has indexed your site at all
Before anything else, find out whether the problem is that Google cannot find your site or that Google has found it but is not ranking it.
Go to Google and type: site:yourdomain.com
Replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain. If results appear, Google has indexed at least some of your pages. If nothing appears at all, Google either has not crawled your site yet or something is blocking it.
This single check tells you which half of this guide to focus on.
If Google has not indexed your site
Set up Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows you exactly what Google knows about your site. If you have not set it up yet, do this first. Go to search.google.com/search-console, add your domain, and verify ownership. Verification usually involves adding a small piece of code to your site or confirming ownership through your domain registrar. Most website builders have a dedicated field for this.
Once verified, Search Console shows you which pages are indexed, which are not, and why.
Submit your sitemap
A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your site and tells Google where to find them. Most website builders generate one automatically. The URL is usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Check that address in your browser to confirm it exists.
Inside Google Search Console, go to Sitemaps in the left menu and submit your sitemap URL. This tells Google to go and crawl those pages. It does not guarantee instant indexing but it significantly speeds up the process.
Request indexing for your most important pages
Inside Search Console, use the URL Inspection tool at the top of the page. Paste in your homepage URL and click Request Indexing. Do the same for any other key pages. Google does not guarantee a timeline but for new sites this typically results in crawling within a few days to a few weeks.
If Google has found your site but is not showing it
Check for a noindex tag
A noindex tag is an instruction in your page code that tells Google not to include a page in search results. It is sometimes added accidentally during site builds and left on after launch.
To check, go to your page in a browser, right click, and select View Page Source. Search for the word “noindex”. If you find a line that reads content=”noindex” or similar, that tag is telling Google to exclude the page. Remove it through your website builder’s SEO settings or page settings.
Some website builders have a global privacy or visibility setting that adds noindex to every page. Check your site-wide SEO settings and make sure the site is set to public or visible to search engines.
Check your robots.txt file
Your robots.txt file tells search engine bots which parts of your site they are and are not allowed to crawl. If it accidentally blocks Googlebot, Google cannot crawl any of your pages at all.
Go to yourdomain.com/robots.txt in your browser. If you see a line that reads Disallow: / under User-agent: Googlebot or User-agent: *, that is blocking Google from your entire site. Remove that line or change Disallow: / to Disallow: followed by nothing, which means nothing is blocked.
Check that your domain is pointing correctly
If you recently connected a custom domain or migrated your site to a new platform, the domain might not be resolving to the right place. Type your domain into a browser and confirm your actual site loads. If it shows a builder placeholder, a parked domain page, or an error, the domain is not pointing to your site correctly. Check your domain settings with whoever you registered the domain through and confirm the DNS records point to your hosting or website builder.
If your site is indexed but not ranking for your own name
If you search for your business name or your own name and your site does not appear, this is usually a sign that your site is very new, has very little content, or has no other sites linking to it yet.
Google ranks pages it considers credible and relevant. A brand new site with one page and no backlinks has not yet established enough signal for Google to surface it confidently, even for branded searches. This is normal and resolves over time as you add content and your site gets mentioned elsewhere online.
In the meantime, make sure your homepage has a clear page title that includes your business or site name, and that your about page or homepage copy mentions your name explicitly so Google can associate your domain with your brand.
If your site was showing before and has now disappeared
A sudden disappearance from Google results is usually caused by one of the following: a noindex tag was accidentally added during a site update, a robots.txt change blocked Googlebot, the site was migrated to a new domain without proper redirects, or the site was hit by a manual penalty.
Check Search Console first. Go to the Coverage or Pages report and look for errors. If there is a manual action, it will appear as a notification in the Manual Actions section. If the issue is a noindex tag or robots.txt block, follow the steps above. If you migrated to a new domain, make sure 301 redirects are in place from every old URL to the correct new URL, and submit the new sitemap through Search Console.
How long does it take for Google to index a new site
There is no fixed timeline. Google crawls the web continuously but prioritises sites that are established, frequently updated, and linked to from other sites. A brand new site with no backlinks can take anywhere from a few days to several months to appear in search results.
The steps above, submitting your sitemap and requesting indexing through Search Console, are the most direct ways to speed this up. Beyond that, publishing new content regularly and getting your site mentioned or linked to from other websites signals to Google that your site is active and worth crawling more frequently.