Why is my website not showing up on google? Here is why.

If you are wondering “why is my website not showing up on Google”, this article will outline why it isn’t showing up, and how to fix it.

First, it is critical to understand the difference between a website that is indexed, and one that is ranking. This article will walk you through how to make sure Google has indexed your website (aka is ready to show your pages) and the best SEO practices you need to use to make sure those pages rank higher (aka, first page of Google).

Why is my website not showing up in google search? - Key SEO Strategies to Consider:

• First, see if your website is indexed (this is different then how well it’s ranking) - if it isn’t indexed, sign up for Search Console and submit your sitemap

• Research and implement keywords to make sure your website ranks for the keywords your target audience is searching for

• Improve your user experience, including site speed, navigation, and a clear site structure

• Show Google you are an expert in your field by including about information, testimonials, and getting other sites in your niche to link back to yours (backlinks)

If you your website is not showing up on Google after following these steps, you can get affordable SEO services for small business to help you grow your client and customer base through SEO.

Table of Contents

Step 1: How to get your website to show up on Google

If you want to get your website to show up on Google search, the first step is to see what pages are indexed. Just because a page is indexed doesn’t mean it will rank on Google. If you think your Squarespace website is not showing up on Google, either your pages aren’t indexed, or they are indexed but not ranking very high. Here are two ways to see what pages Google has indexed:

Indexed Pages - If a page has been indexed, it means Google can find it and has scanned it. Just because a page is indexed doesn’t mean it will rank. It just means Google has checked it out and has added it to the searchable database. However, if your website or page is not indexed, no amount of optimizing will make a difference.

Ranking Pages - Ranking has to do with how high up in search results Google will display your website or website page. Once your page is indexed, Google will determine how high to rank it based on certain ranking factors and how well you have optimized your website based on those ranking factors.

Step 2: See if your website is indexed

Method One: Manually search using Google

Go to Google.com and type site:mywebsite.com into the Google search bar. Replace “mywebsite.com” with your url. Google will bring up all the pages that are currently indexed. 

Method Two: Sign up for Google’s free Search Console tool

Sign up for the free service called Google Search Console. This gives you tools to monitor your website performance, track what pages are indexed, and receive email alerts. You can also request indexing of a page that is not being indexed.

If you use a Squarespace website, for example, you can simply navigate to the Keywords panel under Analytics. Go to Analytics -> Keywords. Click the button to sync to Search Console. It will prompt you to log into your Google account and set it up for you! If you don’t use Squarespace, click here for a tutorial on how to set it up manually.

Squarespace, and other platforms such as Wix, only provides some data through the Analytics tab. You can always go to search.google.com/search-console to access all of your data.

Bonus Tip: See what Google sees with this free simulator

Another easy way to see how Google views your website is to use this free Google Crawler Simulator. You’ll be provided with a quick snapshot of the unique keyword density, alt text, headings, and more.

Step 3: Rank higher with ranking factor optimization

Once you determine that your website is indexed, you can work on getting it to rank higher in search results. To do this, you need to optimize your website based on key ranking factors. The top three are:

• Keywords and Keyword Placement—blogs are the best way to add more keywords to your website. The more content you have, the more you will rank.

• User experience—such as how fast your website loads and mobile friendly design

• Authority—adding links to other websites in your industry and having your website linked from other websites (also known as a “backlink strategy”)

Keywords and Keyword Placement

1) Do you know what questions your audience are typing into Google? Ask yourself, “what is my target audience currently typing into Google?”. In a nutshell, this is what keywords are! Your audience is typing questions into Google, so you need to make sure your website has those keywords integrated into the pages and meta data. If you get stuck, you can use Answer the Public. The free version comes with 3 daily searches.

2) Do you know how many people are searching for those questions? Once you have a list of questions (keywords) people are using, you’ll want to use a free tool such as Google’s keyword planner to see how much traffic those keywords are getting. You want to pick keywords that are getting around 1000-10k hits with a “low” competition value.

You can also use Ubersuggest. This is a bit easier to use the Google’s keyword planner, but the free version limits you to 3 searches a day. You want to look for keywords that have a SEO score of 30 or lower, and traffic of 1,000 or higher.

3) Have you put keywords from those questions into your website? Keywords need to be placed in your page/blog titles, URL’s, meta data, and on the page several times (where it makes sense). If you are just getting started with SEO, you can start with my DIY SEO checklist to kick things off!

4) Have you put those keywords into your website a LOT? The more times your keywords show up, the higher you will rank. There is only so much space on your main landing pages to integrate primary keywords in an authentic way. The best way to add keywords is through a blog. Blogging in 2024 and beyond is about answering questions and providing educational value. It’s no longer a personal discovery outlet. Use it to answer questions your audience is asking and talk about topics you are an expert in (related to the services and products you are providing).

If you have a Squarespace website, you can use SEO Space, the SEO Plugin for Squarespace, to tackle all of these things! Audit your website, use they keyword planner to help you plan keywords, and use the built-in checklist to see exactly where to put your keywords (in addition to other ways you can optimize your website). I highly recommend this one tool to replace all of the other free tools if you have a Squarespace website.

User Experience

Google understands that websites with better user experience are easier to navigate, more helpful, and more useful to people. The better user experience you have, the higher you will rank. In fact, Google tracks this data using Chrome. The longer people stay on your website, the more pages they click, and the more links they click, the higher Google will rank you in search results!

1) Does your website load in a second or two? If your website takes more then 1 second to load, you are loosing conversions before people even get onto your site. How long do you wait for a new website to load before moving onto other search results? If your site is slow, reach out to your website designer. If you built it yourself on a platform such as Squarespace, the main issue is usually caused from large images! Here is how you can size your images down for the web.

2) Have you built a separate mobile design for your website? If you have to pinch your fingers to view your website on a smartphone, it’s not mobile friendly. All new website platforms support a separate mobile editor. Use it! Make sure your mobile version is designed differently then your desktop version with the mobile user in mind.

3) Can people quickly scan your website? People don’t read anymore. Make sure you design your website with short paragraphs, bullet points, icons, images, and a table of contents (on your blogs). This will make sure people can scan your content quickly and don’t get overwhelmed.

Authority

Google wants to understand you. It wants to make sure you are an authority and expert on your topic. You need to structure your website and content in a way where Google can follow this.

1) Have other sites linked to your website? Google wants to know you know what you are talking about. Having other high quality websites in your industry link back to yours will help a ton. You can do this through guest blogging or online directories, for example.

2) Are you limiting your blog writing to just a handful of topics that you are an expert in? Write a list of topics that are relevant to your products and services. Keep your blog focused on these topics. Google likes to see a lot of content that makes sense together so it can better understand what you offer and how you are an expert.

3) Do your website pages and blog pages link to other pages within your site? similar to topic clusters, you want to link your blog posts to other blog posts (on your own site) to help Google understand how your articles relate to each other (aka topic “clusters”).

4) Are you writing authentic & helpful content: Keyword “stuffing” will now get you penalized. Use keywords where they make sense and write helpful and unique content. If you use AI to generate your blogs, be sure to only use this as a first draft and edit the final content.

Troubleshooting: Why is my website not showing up on Google?

How long does it take a website to show up on Google search?

New Domain + New Website: 3-6 Months

If you just registered a new domain and have never associated a website with that domain, it usually takes about 3-6 months to rank on Google. You will often see your first organic search hit around the 3-month mark.

Older Domains (6+ months or older)

If you have had a website for a while, chances are your domain is already ranking on Google. If you haven’t set up a Search Console account before, it will take about 4-7 days to populate the data. Take note the website is already ranking, Search Console is just an analytics platform (see below).

A note about Google Search Console:

It is important to note Google Search Console is an analytics tool that tracks data from Google. It doesn’t directly impact your Google rankings. The tool simply provides analytics on search terms, page rankings, website performance, indexing errors, and more.

Will launching a new website affect my Google search rankings? 

No! Launching a new website will only improve your Google search rankings! New websites often come with updated mobile design, better site speed, updated content, and more. These factors will increase your visiblity.

If you already have a URL and want to build a new website, your old URL can be transferred to your new website so that you keep all your Google rankings. In general, when I launch new client websites that are associated with a previous domain, it takes about 4 days for Google to re-index the website. Google typically scans websites every few days!

However, if you are launching a new website with a new domain, it is important to note it will take about 3-6 months for your new domain (website) to start ranking.

Pro-Tip: If you are launching a new website and transferring a domain, make sure to add redirects! In Squaresapce, they call this “URL Mappings”. Sometimes when building a new website old URL’s no longer exist. It is important to tell Google that those URL’s have been moved.

For example, if your old website had a page that ended in /contact-me and you decided your new website contact page should just be /contact, you’ll want to map/redirect the old page to the new one. Google has already indexed /contact-me so you want to tell google that it has permanently moved to /contact. This can be done with something called a 302 redirect.

Learn more about URL mappings in Squarespace ⟶

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my website not showing up on Google?

First, use the suggested techniques in this article to see what pages Google is indexing. It’s possible your website is indexed, but not ranking when you search. I prefer the Search Console method because you can see exactly which pages are indexed and which aren’t (and why).

If your pages are indexed but not ranking, the next step is to make sure you are following the guidelines listed at the beginning of this article. Are you making any of the SEO mistakes mentioned? Have you added in keywords for the searches you want to rank for? Is your site fast and mobile friendly? Do you have backlinks and helpful content that tells Google you are an expert in your field? Lastley, do you have a blog? Without a blog it is nearly impossible to get enough keywords on your website to rank well.

How to find your Google Search login?

You can Google this (pun not intended haha!). Or, you can go to “serach.google.com/search-console” to view your login information and/or analytics. I’d recommend bookmarking it for easy access.

How do I show up on Google Search business?

If you own a business you can use the free Google My Business profile to show up in the map section. This is particularly useful for local businesses that have a brick and mortar address. However, it is recommended for everyone. It will help build your authority with Google, provide a backlink (to your website), and provide Google with additional information about your business.

How to index my website on Google and why is google not indexing my site?

If you are finding pages aren’t being indexed in Google, there may be a few things you can try. First, I’d recommend making sure your primary pages are indexed. There are usually a few versions of your website url and Search Console will only index the primary URL. For example, it might index https://www.myurl.com but not http://www.myurl.com because it has decided the first one (with the “s”) is the primary one.

Another reason your website might not be indexed is if it is new. It can take 3-6 months to index your full website. The best thing to do is to keep sending traffic to it and adding blogs. It will index faster that way!

The last suggestion is to manually request indexing. Search the desired page in Search Console. It will tell you if it is indexed. If not, you can “request indexing”. If your website is at least 3 months old and the page is a candidate for indexing, it will be indexed within a few days.

How do I get my website on the first page of Google for free?

If you have followed all the free steps in this article and your website is still not ranking on the first page, it may be time to take more advanced steps. Request a free SEO audit to see where your website is falling short.

How do I get some SEO help?

I offer a variety of flexible and affordable SEO services for small business. Reach out and let’s talk about what the next step is for you.