Why isn't my website showing up on Google?

You launched the site three weeks ago. You search for your business name and it isn't there. Somewhere on page four there's a directory listing with your old phone number.

This is almost never a penalty, and it's almost never permanent. There are five common causes, and they're worth checking in order, because the first one explains most cases and takes about ten seconds to rule out.

First: does Google have your site at all?

Go to Google and search for site:yourdomain.com, with no space after the colon and your own domain in place of the example. This asks Google to list only pages it has stored from your site.

• No results at all — Google has not indexed a single page. Keep reading; this is the most common case for a new site.
• A few results, but not the page you expected — Google knows your site but has missed some pages.
• All your pages are listed — indexing is fine, and your problem is ranking rather than visibility. Skip to the last two sections.

If nothing is indexed

Start with the checkbox. Most website builders have a privacy setting that asks search engines to stay away, meant for sites still under construction. In WordPress it's under Settings, Reading, and it's called "Discourage search engines from indexing this site". Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow all have their own version. If it's still on, turn it off and nothing else on this list matters.

The most common cause of an invisible new website is a checkbox someone ticked before launch and never unticked after it.

If that isn't it, work down the rest:

• The site is simply too new. Google needs to discover you, and with no links pointing at your domain that can take a couple of weeks.
• You haven't told Google you exist. Set up Google Search Console and submit your sitemap — usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
• A noindex tag survived the move from staging to production. Search Console's URL inspection tool will tell you if one is on a specific page.
• Your robots.txt is blocking crawlers. Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt; a line reading "Disallow: /" blocks your entire site.

If your pages are indexed but you still can't find them

Try searching for your exact page title in quotation marks. If the page appears, it's indexed and rankable, and you were searching for something you don't rank for yet. That's a different problem with a different fix.

Also check that you aren't searching for a term where your own brand is genuinely ambiguous. If your company is called Atlas and you search for "atlas", you are competing with maps, a Marvel character, and a vertebra.

Being indexed is not the same as ranking

Indexing means Google has your page on file and is willing to show it. Ranking means Google thinks your page is the best answer to a particular search. Every site clears the first bar quickly. The second one is the actual work, and it takes months rather than days.

A useful sanity check: you should be findable for your own brand name within a few weeks of launch. Anything competitive — "project management software", "accountant in Manchester" — is a longer project.

The order to fix things

• Turn off any "discourage search engines" setting in your website builder.
• Verify your site in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap.
• Run one important page through URL inspection and request indexing.
• Get two or three real links pointing at your domain — a supplier, a directory, a partner, your own social profiles.
• Wait two weeks, then check site:yourdomain.com again.

If pages are still missing after that, Search Console's Pages report will name the reason rather than leaving you to guess. For most new sites the answer is duller than people fear: nothing is broken, the site is just new and hasn't earned any attention yet.