My website does not show up on Google: the causes to check, in order

The site has been online for months, it cost money, and when you type your trade and your town into Google, it is nowhere. Before concluding that “SEO does not work”, there are six causes to check, in order. The first three are often fixed within an hour. The next three take work, but at least you will know which.

First, does Google even know the site exists?

Type site:yourdomain.com into Google, replacing it with your address. If pages appear, Google knows your site: the problem is a ranking problem, and you can skip to cause 3. If nothing appears, Google has not indexed it, and the first two causes are for you.

To go further than this test, create a Google Search Console account. It is free, and it is the only place where Google tells you precisely which pages it knows, which it refuses, and for which searches it shows you.

Cause 1: the site is too recent

Google does not discover a site on the day it goes live. Without any link from elsewhere, it can take several weeks. Two actions speed things up: declare the site in Search Console and submit the sitemap (the sitemap.xml file), then create or update your Google Business Profile with a link to the site. A brand-new site with no Google profile and no links is invisible for a simple reason: nobody, not even Google, has a path to reach it.

Cause 2: the site tells Google to stay away

This is the silliest cause and one of the most common after a launch. During development, the site under construction is often set to ask Google not to index it. It happens that this setting stays active after delivery.

Three places to check, or to have checked by whoever built the site:

• A noindex tag in the pages’ code.
• A robots.txt file that forbids everything (Disallow: /).
• On WordPress, the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box in the reading settings.

The site must also be genuinely reachable: no password, no “site under maintenance” page, no expired hosting. Search Console flags all of this in its coverage report.

Cause 3: no page answers the search

Google does not rank websites, it ranks pages. If you want to appear for “roofer Tourcoing”, you need a page about roofing in Tourcoing: a title that says so, a text that develops it, not just a homepage with “Welcome” and three photos.

The classic symptoms:

• The site fits on a single page, with ten lines of text.
• The page titles are “Home”, “Services”, “Contact”, without ever naming the trade or the town.
• The services are in an image or a PDF, which Google does not read.
• The text talks about “solutions” and “support” without ever saying what you actually do.

The remedy is editorial, not technical: one page per service, one page per important town if you travel, and a page title that says what the customer is looking for. I listed the pages a professional website needs in the essential pages of a business website.

Cause 4: the site is slow or broken on mobile

Most local searches happen on a phone. Google tests your site on mobile, not on a large screen. A site that takes six seconds to display, whose buttons overlap or whose text is unreadable without zooming, is ranked below less complete but usable sites.

To measure it, PageSpeed Insights, Google’s free tool, gives a score and the list of what weighs on it. I explain exactly what Google measures in the article on Core Web Vitals. If the mobile score is in the red, the fixes fall under a maintenance job when the site is sound, or a redesign when it rests on a heavy theme nobody controls anymore.

Cause 5: nobody else talks about you

Google trusts a site that other sites mention. A site with no inbound link, no Business Profile, no presence in professional directories, starts with a handicap, especially against competitors established for ten years.

What counts for a local business, in order of effectiveness: the Google Business Profile (I detail its setup in how to appear on Google Maps), the serious directories of your sector and region, the sites of suppliers or partners who agree to mention you, and the local press. The name, address and phone number must be written the same way everywhere.

Cause 6: the targeted search is too broad

“Website design” or “lawyer” are national searches, contested by thousands of sites with large budgets. A small business will not appear there, and that is not a failure, it is a question of target.

The right strategy is to aim for what your customers actually type: the trade and the town, the trade and a precise need, a question you hear every week. “Employment lawyer Lille” is reachable. “Lawyer” is not. Each page of your site, each article, should target one of these precise searches.

The ten-minute check

1. site:yourdomain.com on Google: do pages appear?
2. Search Console: is the site declared, the sitemap submitted, any errors flagged?
3. Does the homepage code contain noindex?
4. Does each page title name the trade and the town?
5. PageSpeed Insights on mobile: is the score green, orange or red?
6. Does your Google Business Profile exist, and does it link to the site?
7. Does the search you want to rank for include your town?

For a fuller check of your local visibility, the local SEO checklist covers fifteen points with a score.

If the answers are good to all seven questions and the site is still invisible after three months, the problem lies elsewhere, and it deserves a proper diagnosis.

Let’s talk about your website

You have done these checks and something is blocking, or you would rather I did them for you? Send me your website address with the search you would like to appear for. I reply with what I saw and what should be fixed first, with no commitment.