7 October 2026 · 6 min read
Why is my website not showing up on Google?
The seven reasons a new or rebuilt site is invisible on Google, how to check each one in five minutes, and what to do about it. Works for Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and custom sites.
You launched the site, you searched your own business name, and there it is: not there. Before you panic, go through this list in order. One of these is almost always the reason.
1. Google hasn't found it yet
A brand new domain can take days or weeks to be discovered. Check: search `site:yourdomain.com` on Google. If nothing comes back, Google hasn't indexed a single page. Fix: set up Google Search Console, verify the domain, submit your sitemap, and use "Request indexing" on your home page. That turns weeks into days.
2. You're telling Google to stay away
Builders have a "hide from search engines" switch that is sometimes on by default on drafts. Check: view the page source and look for `noindex`, and open `yourdomain.com/robots.txt`. Fix: turn off the hide setting, remove the noindex tag, republish.
3. The site is only reachable on one address
`www.yourdomain.com` and `yourdomain.com` are two sites to Google unless one redirects to the other. Fix: pick one, redirect the other permanently (a 301), and set the canonical tag to match.
4. You're searching for words that aren't on the site
If your home page says "Welcome to our site" and never says "roofing in Ottawa", Google has no reason to show it for roofing in Ottawa. Fix: every important page needs a clear title, a heading, and a few plain paragraphs that say what you do and where.
5. The site is new and competing with old sites
For a competitive phrase ("plumber Ottawa"), a six-week-old site won't outrank companies with ten years of reviews and links. That isn't a fault, it's a timeline. Fix: make sure you win your own brand name first, then build out service pages and reviews. Months, not days.
6. Google Business Profile is doing the ranking, not the website
For local searches the map pack appears above the websites. If your profile is missing, unverified or points to the wrong address, you're invisible where it matters. Fix: claim and verify the profile, add categories, photos, hours and your website link, and start collecting reviews.
7. The site is slow or broken on phones
Google crawls with a phone. If the page takes six seconds or the menu doesn't work on mobile, rankings suffer. Check: open the site on your own phone on cellular data. Fix: compress images, cut the plugins you don't use, and test again.
A five-minute check you can do right now
- Search `site:yourdomain.com`.
- Open `yourdomain.com/robots.txt`.
- Search your exact business name in quotes.
- Open the site on your phone, on data, not Wi-Fi.
- Check Search Console for "Pages" and any red errors.
If you'd rather someone else did the checking and the fixing, that's a normal part of what we do when we take over a site.
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