You built the website, you search your own business, and… nothing. Few things feel worse — or get explained worse. ‘Just wait’ and ‘do SEO’ aren’t answers. Here are the nine real reasons sites don’t show up, in the order you should check them, each with the actual fix. Work down the list; the culprit is here.
First, Diagnose: Invisible or Just Not Ranking?
Type site:yourwebsite.co.uk into Google. If pages appear, Google KNOWS your site — you have a ranking problem (causes 6–9). If nothing appears, Google can’t or won’t index you — you have a technical problem (causes 1–5). This one search tells you which half of the list is yours.
Causes 1–5 — Google Can’t See You
1. The noindex switch is on. WordPress has a checkbox — Settings → Reading → ‘Discourage search engines’ — that developers use during builds and forget to turn off. It is the single most common cause on new sites. Untick it, then request indexing in Search Console.
2. You never told Google you exist. New sites without Search Console setup and a submitted sitemap can take weeks to be found by chance. Set up Google Search Console (free), submit your sitemap, request indexing — discovery drops from weeks to days.
3. The site is too new. Even done right, brand-new domains take days to a few weeks to appear. If everything above checks out and the site is under a month old, patience is genuinely part of the fix — but only after checks 1 and 2.
4. Technical blockers: a robots.txt file blocking crawlers, a hacked site Google has flagged, or broken pages. Search Console’s Pages and Security reports reveal all three in minutes.
5. Crawlable but rejected: thin, duplicated or copied content can be discovered yet left unindexed (‘Crawled — currently not indexed’ in Search Console). The fix is real content: unique, useful pages — not more submissions.
Causes 6–9 — Indexed but Buried
6. You’re targeting words nobody types (or everybody fights over). Ranking page one for ‘solutions provider’ helps no one; ranking for ’emergency electrician Reading’ pays. Keyword targeting is a choice — most invisible sites never made it.
7. Your pages don’t match search intent. A single homepage cannot rank for ten services. Google rewards one strong page per service, per location. Structure is strategy.
8. Zero authority. Google trusts sites other sites and profiles point to. A complete Google Business Profile, consistent directory listings and a handful of genuine local links move new sites more than owners expect.
9. Speed and mobile failures. A site that loads in seven seconds on a phone gets demoted no matter how good the words are. Test free at PageSpeed Insights; under 3 seconds is the working target.
How long until a new website shows on Google?
With Search Console set up and a sitemap submitted: usually days for indexing. Without: weeks, unpredictably. Ranking WELL for competitive terms is a separate journey of months — indexing is just the front door.
My site shows for my business name but nothing else. Why?
That’s normal early on — your name has no competition; your services do. Ranking for service searches needs dedicated pages, local signals and authority: the actual work of SEO.
Can you find what’s blocking my site?
Yes — that’s our free SEO audit: we identify which of these nine (or what else) is holding you back and send a plain-English fix list within 48 hours, whether or not you hire us.