Why isn't my website showing up on Google?

A site that exists but does not show up on Google is one of the most common things we are called in to fix. Here is the order we actually check things, fastest and most likely first.

1. Is it even indexed?

Search Google for 'site:yourdomain.co.uk'. If nothing, or almost nothing, comes back, Google has not indexed your pages, and no amount of keyword tweaking matters until it has. Usual causes: the site is new (indexing takes days to weeks), a stray 'noindex' tag, or a robots.txt blocking crawlers. Rule this out first.

2. Is it new?

If the domain or site is only weeks old, patience is the answer, not panic. New sites take two to six months to build real rankings while Google crawls, indexes and starts to trust them. Nothing makes a fresh site rank overnight.

3. Are you targeting terms you can actually win?

Trying to rank for 'web design' against the whole internet is a years-long fight. Ranking for the specific things your customers search, including your service plus your location, is winnable far sooner. Most invisible sites are aiming at the wrong, too-broad terms.

4. Is the site built to be found at all?

Plenty of sites were never built with search in mind: no clear page titles, thin or duplicated content, slow on mobile, no sitemap, a confusing structure. A builder template often ranks poorly for exactly these reasons. Google cannot rank what it cannot understand and load quickly.

5. Do you have any authority?

Rankings are partly a popularity contest. If no other site links to yours and you have no reviews or local citations, Google has little reason to trust you over established competitors. This is the slowest lever and the one most people skip.

The honest summary

Nine times out of ten, an invisible site is too new, aiming too broad, or built on a platform that was never going to rank. The fix is rarely a magic keyword, it is the right foundation plus time. That is what 'set up to be found on Google and AI' means when we say it, and it is why we build sites that way from day one.