Why is my website not showing up in a Google search?

Yes, a question I hear a lot is “Why is my website not showing up in a Google search?” There are a lot of reasons your website may not be showing up in search engines.

We also need to make the distinction between local search and Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS.) Local search results are usually associated with a map listing of some sort.

Local search is important, especially for local businesses. I want to mention that local search can even be highly beneficial for businesses that work with customers outside their immediate area.

If your website has been around for a while and you know it’s been featured in news stories and online media you should at least be indexed in search engines. If you are showing up in a local search, but your business website is not showing up in the Search Engine Results Pages, there is something wrong.

How to check if your site is indexed in Google.

Go to Google search and type in lowercase “site” then a colon, then the website name, such as site:mywebsitename this will let you know if any of your website’s pages are indexed.

site:mywebsitename

There are also online tools you can use, but the search is just as easy.

So you see your well aged and promoted site is not indexed, what next?

The first thing to check is that your website is not blocking search engines. When testing the website there will be some little telltale signs that will hint that search engines are blocked. You will see the results of search engine blocking in some of my website build videos.

Here the solution is an easy fix. Go into your content management system’s backend and allow search engines. Different content management systems have their own workflow, so I can’t tell you exactly how to do this, but it does need to be done.

This is one of those little things I write about when I say your website needs to complement and support your sales team. Your website needs to help move people through the sales process.

Local Search as a No Index backup for your website.

The good thing is, if you have your local search setup, then it will save you. Local search listings can be a fall back, even if somehow you accidentally blocked search engines. I think we have all accidentally blocked search engines at some point. A good support and continuous improvement plan will help catch this sort of thing early and act as another level of quality assurance.

The only problem with relying on local search is that all your SEO optimized internal pages will not be found with a standard search. This means you will not show up for services you offer, or for articles you have posted, or photos. Fortunately many businesses now use social media which again can work as a sort of back up to a website that is not indexed. Instagram and Facebook can act as a backup for photos, Eventbrite can be a backup for events, and YouTube can be a backup for video. While all of these can work as backups for being found in search, it is ideal if you can be found through your own website.

No index because of Hack.

Another reason your website is not being indexed is because the site was hacked and taken offline by the search engines. This is fairly common and why you need to have some kind of security and maintenance system in place to monitor these events. If you act quickly your website should be back online shortly. This can take several days.

No Index because of Manual Action.

Having a manual action taken against your site is another possibility. I personally know someone who had this happen to them. Eventually Google restored their site. But I have to add, they are fairly famous and if I remember the story right, they had a personal meeting with a senior Google staff member.

As always, I am wishing you the very best.