Website Not Showing Up On Google
Don’t panic if your website is not on Google. Follow these steps to identify and fix any potential problems.
If your website is not showing up on Google there are a variety of factors that could be responsible.
In this post, I will break down the most common reasons your website is not visible on Google and what you can do to fix it.
Your Online Store Has A Password
If you have a password set up to access your online store, you wont appear in search engines. The reason is pretty straightforward its for privacy. If you only want a select few to shop from your store, then a password is helpful.
However, if you dont want to use a password for your store, but it is anyway, youll need to remove it. Heres how:
- From the Shopify admin page, go to Online Store & gt Preferences
- In the Password Page section, make sure that Enable Password Page is unchecked
- Hit Save to enable your changes
Once your password gets removed, try Googling your Shopify store again. If the password was your only issue, then you should see your store on the results pages.
Why Is My Website Not Loading
If you cant load a site, it could be due to a variety of issues, including misconfiguration, corrupt files, a bug in your database, or something as simple as having your browsers cache and cookies set to clear.
3 Ways To Block Websites
It is possible to configure your computer to block or allow websites at the level of the user. It can also block certain websites if the Windows operating system has a built-in firewall. Your internet service provider can block websites if they are on your network. In the case of pirated or inappropriate content, it is common for apps to block access. Websites that are deemed harmful or offensive to society may be blocked by the internet service provider . It is very common to do this to keep children from accessing inappropriate content.
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You Have A Google Penalty
Having a Google penalty is the least likely reason for not showing up on Google. But it is a possibility.
There are two types of Google penalties.
- Manual: This is when Google takes action to remove or demote your site in the search results. It happens when a Google employee manually reviews your website and finds that it doesnt comply with their Webmaster Guidelines.
- Algorithmic: This is when Googles algorithm suppresses your website or a web page in the search results due to quality issues. Its more a case of computer says no than human says no.
Luckily, manual penalties are extremely rare. Youre unlikely to get one unless youve done something drastically wrong. Google also usually alerts you about them via the Manual penalties tab in Search Console.
If theres no warning in there, then you probably dont have a manual penalty.
Unfortunately, Google doesnt tell you if your site is being filtered algorithmicallyand this can be quite challenging to identify.
If you suspect an algorithmic penalty due to a recent significant drop in organic traffic, your first course of action should be to check whether that drop coincided with a .
Panguin is a useful tool for this. It shows known algorithm change dates over your Google Analytics traffic to make it easy to spot issues.
If you still suspect your site has been filtered or penalized at this point, talk to an expert before taking any potentially catastrophic actions like disavowing links.
Your Website Is Brand New
When youre just getting started with building up your online presence, patience is key.
Your competitors have been around longer than you have, and theyve probably already built up some authority and relevance on Google.
Temper your expectations and dont expect to be found right away.
Sometimes, it can take 6-9 months for your website to start showing up on Google, even if youre done everything properly and verified your ownership of it in Google Search Console.
To get traction, link out to your website from your Google Business Profile and request reviews from as many satisfied clients as you can.
Join your local business association and ask them to link out to your website. Donate to a local non-profit and ask them to add a link to the site in their Facebook or Instagram post when they announce the donation.
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Check If Your Site Is Accessible Everywhere
It is possible that your site isnt accessible everywhere.
First, check your site on your mobile phone to make sure that it is accessible and fully functional on a smartphone.
This is incredibly important because Googles index is becoming mobile-first. This means that they use the mobile version of your site in their index.
If your website doesnt work on mobile, then that could cause it not to be shown in Google.
To check if your site is accessible from different cities all over the world, use this free tool.
Ensure Your Business Abides All Of Google Guidelines
Youll need to be honest and transparent about your business if you want it to show up on Google.
There are a few guidelines youll need to familiarize yourself with and follow, the most important of which are the .
The key takeaways are to represent your business accurately, as its represented and recognized in the actual world.
If you violate Googles rules, youll be sent a message in the Google account you use to manage your business profile to let you know that the business has been disabled or, worse, banned.
You should abide by all of Googles guidelines. Otherwise, Google might actively work to remove your website from its local search results and search engine results page.
So make sure all information is precise and accurate. And only create one profile per business. When in doubt, ask a question . You will be surprised about how quickly somebody can give you a detailed and helpful answer!
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Get Rid Of Content Problems On Your Website
Google may decide not to show your site in the search results if it thinks you have low-quality content.
Here are some examples of content problems to avoid:
- Little or no text: If your pages have little or no text, then search engines may not be able to understand them.
- Duplicate content: If most of your content is copied from other sites, then Google likely wont show it.
- Spammy content: Google does not want to show spam sites or spammy content in the search results.
Having high-quality content is not only important to get indexed. It is also the single most important factor to start ranking for popular keywords that drive search traffic.
Youre Blocking Search Engines From Indexing Your Pages
If you tell Google not to show certain pages in the search results, then it wont.
You do that with a noindex meta tag, which is a piece of HTML code that looks like this:
< meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”/>
Pages with that code wont be indexed, even if you created a sitemap and submitted it in Google Search Console.
You probably dont recall ever adding that code to any of your pages, but that doesnt mean it isnt there.
For example, WordPress adds it to every page if you check the wrong box when setting up your site.
Its also something that a lot of web developers use to prevent Google from indexing a site during the development process and forget to remove it before publishing.
If Google has already crawled the pages in your sitemap, itll tell you about any noindexed ones in the Coverage report in .
Just look for this error:
If you recently submitted your sitemap to Google and they havent crawled the pages yet, run a crawl in Ahrefs Site Audit. This checks every page on your site for 100+ potential SEO issues, including the presence of noindex tags.
Remove noindex tags from any pages that shouldnt have them.
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Your Site Doesnt Have Good Enough Content
Youre asking, Why isnt my website showing up on Google? Causes six, seven, and eight on our list pertain to you if youve gone through our litmus test at the beginning of this article and determined that your site is technically indexed. The real issue with your website is that its not ranking anywhere near page one, making your virtually invisible to potential customers.
Our SEO agency in Austin, Houston, and DFW can help you attract an audience of potential customers in the near term. Contact a member of our team today to schedule a free consultation.
Content Isnt Optimized
What makes an effective business website? Most small business owners dont have a clear idea.
Have you ever heard the phrase, If you build it, he will come? from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams? Unfortunately, this is the mindset that many small business owners adhere to when it comes to building and managing their websites.
However, if your website content only consists of what you think your target audience wants to hear, you will consistently miss the mark and underperform. SEO-friendly website design requires hours of Keyword research, competitor analysis, and thoughtful content writing.
If youre shooting from the hip when it comes to creating content for your business website, this may be why your site isnt showing up in Google. MARION provides content marketing in Houston, Austin, and DFW that can help turn your low-performing site into an effective business website.
Make Your Website Faster
Google wants websites to be fast. If your website is very slow then Google may not want to show it in the search results.
The best tool to check your site speed is .
Enter your home page and a few internal pages into the tool to see if you are having problems with page loading times.
You dont need to get a perfect score, but if Google sees your site as being way too slow then it can be a problem.
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Your Targeting Highly Competitive Keywords
Depending on your industry, the SEO keywords you are trying to rank for may be highly competitive. Naturally, this will make it harder for your site to appear for these terms.
Failing to rank for these keywords could be attributed to the industry you are in rather than any issue with your site.
Youll need to verify that this is the case and that your lack of visibility is not the result of a deeper issue.
Solution:
Check the Coverage section within Google Search Console or perform a site search in Google using your websites name to see if your website is included in the index at all.
Once you confirm that your site is in fact in Google you will know that the issue is you not ranking for particular keywords rather than a complete lack of visibility.
In this situation, you will have to work to boost your ranking to appear at the top for the keywords you are targeting. This will mean continuing to create useful content, increasing your domain authority through high-quality backlinks, and ensuring that all the technical factors of your site are in order.
If you do this you should see your rankings improve over time. While you wait for your site to rank for more competitive keywords, you should consider targeting some other keywords with a lower difficulty to help your site build momentum.
Use your preferred keyword research tool to find long-tail keywords that are less competitive and create content and pages to target those. You will be able to rank these pages faster.
How To Get Your Website To Show Up On Google
You want your site to rank on the first page. Depending on your business, you need to employ search engine optimization and SEO strategies to improve your ranking.
To ensure success in the future, conduct an SEO audit of your website. This will give a clear view of where you stand in regards to:
- On-site optimization
- Keyword selection
Keywords can be a single word or even a short phrase of up to four or five words. These should be very relevant terms to your website and which people are likely to use when they search Google.
Meta-tags are a hidden code visitors to your site dont see them, but the Google search engine bots scan your website will pick them up.
We also suggest you use Googles free Keyword Planner to figure this out. Keyword research tool lets your device the popularity of particular search terms, as well as the level of competition you face using them.
Web pages containing links back to your site: A big factor for the search engines is quality organic backlinks. Its what search engines are looking for. If you have multiple sites linking back to your website, Google gives your webpage higher credibility and also the search ranking.
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Your Web Page Doesnt Align With Search Intent
Google aims to rank the most useful and relevant results for each query.
Thats why its essential to align your content with what searchers expect and want to see. This is known as search intent.
Lets say that youre American Express and you want this page to show up in Google for the term best credit card:
If we look at the top-ranking results for this term in Keywords Explorer, these are the metrics for the strongest page in the top five:
- Domain Rating: 86
- Referring domains: 466
Looking in Site Explorer, its clear that American Expresss page beats this page on those fronts. But still, it doesnt even rank in the top 100 results.
Why? Because the page doesnt align with what searchers want to see.
If we look more closely at the top-ranking pages for best credit card, we see that theyre all lists of the best cards from different banks and providers. Like this one:
The page from American Express is more of a sales page.
Google knows people dont want a sales page when searching for this query, so it doesnt rank them.
You Let Your Domain Or Hosting Expire
Suppose you paid somebody to create a website for your business.
It was up and running for one year, and then they forgot to tell you that the domain name and web hosting service need to be renewed.
If thats the case, your website will get taken down by the hosting company and your domain name, unless you renew it within the grace period, will be taken to auction for other people to buy.
Never let your domain name or hosting subscription plan expire if you want to keep your website showing up on Google. If needed, set a reminder in your calendar so you wont forget to renew them.
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Optimize Your Website For Seo
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the art and science of making your website rank higher in search engines like Google and Bing.
If you want to get search traffic to your website, then you should spend some time learning about SEO.
In reality, SEO encompasses everything related to making great websites with high-quality content that answers peoples search queries.
Make Sure To Include Keywords In Your Content
Having high-quality content is crucial, but it wont get you very far if Google doesnt understand what your content is about.
For people to discover your content through Google search, then you need to use the words and phrases that people type into Google when searching.
Make sure that your keywords are included in some form in your title, headings, and text. Also, have clear titles and meta descriptions that accurately describe what your content is about.
In fact, the titles and meta descriptions are what people see when your site shows up in search. If people dont understand what your topics are about, then Google wont either.
You can use free SEO plugins like the SEO Framework to add titles and descriptions in WordPress.
Then you can use keyword tools like Keywords Everywhere and SEMRush to find popular keywords that people search for.
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Will A Google Business Listing Mean I Now Rank At The Top
Not unless youre the only business of this type in your area.
If you dont have much competition from similar businesses then you may come out top. If you set your listing up well.
But if there are dozens of competing companies in an area then Google has to decide which ones are more important. And it has a whole heap of different ways to determine this. Everything from the specific location of the business, to the reviews each business has received, the categories the business is listed under, the way its described, the photos provided. Right through to the overall presence of that business online their website and the content there, listings in relevant business or trade directories, their social profile pages. Everything feeds into everything else to establish credibility and the importance of your brand over and above other brands in your area.
So for most businesses this is definitely not a one off job. Its something to keep working at gradually, to move up the listings and then keep yourself at the top. Get in touch if you would like help with this.
Is My Site On Google
If youre asking, Why is my website not on Google? you could really be interested in learning two separate things.
If youre new to SEO analysis, you may not realize that these are two different issues. If your site is truly not available in Google, there is likely a technical reason that can be resolved. However, if you conducted a couple of searches for what your company offers and your site isnt showing up, you may just need some help with optimizing your website.
For the purposes of this article, imagine that the domain name of your website is yourwebsite.com.
To clear things up, do a search for site:yourwebsite.com to definitively see if your site it being included in Google.
If your site is not on Google, you will see search results that look like the following image.
If your site is on Google but isnt ranking as you expect it to, you will see search results like the following image.
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