You type in a search term, hit enter, and wait for the results – but your website doesn’t show up. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many website owners find that their websites are indexed by Google but don’t show up in search results.
So, what’s the reason? And more importantly, how can you fix it?
In this blog post, we’ll explore the reasons your website may not be appearing in Google search results and walk you through some steps to take to remedy the situation.
How To Check If Your Website Is Showing Up In Google
Checking whether your website is showing up in Google search results is a simple process. You can use the “site:” command to do a quick search of your own site and see if it appears in the search results. If it doesn’t, there’s a chance that your site has been de-indexed by Google.
This can happen for a variety of reasons, but it’s usually not cause for alarm. In most cases, you can simply submit your website to Google for re-indexing and wait a few days for it to reappear in the search results.
Follow these steps to check your website status:
Step 1: Go to Google and type “site:[yourwebsite.com]” into the search bar. Hit enter and take a look at the results that come up.
Step 2: If you see your website listed in the results, congratulations! Your site is definitely indexed by Google and showing up in search results.
If you don’t see your site listed in the results, don’t worry – it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s anything wrong with your site or that Google has de-indexed it.
In most cases, you can simply submit your website to Google for re-indexing and wait a few days for it to reappear in the search results.
If after a week or so your site still isn’t appearing in search results, then there might be something more serious going on and you should contact a professional for help diagnosing the problem.
11 Reasons Your Website Might Not Show In Google
1. You Might Not Have Much Well-Written Content
One of the most common reasons why websites don’t show up in Google is because they simply don’t have enough well-written content.
These days, Google’s algorithm favours sites with high-quality content and rewards quality over quantity.
So, if your website only has a few short pages of content, chances are it’s not going to appear in many search results.
2. Maybe You Have a Redirect Loop
A redirect loop occurs when a user tries to access a website but is automatically redirected to another page before the first page has fully loaded.
This often happens when a website has been moved to a new domain and the old domain is still redirecting users to the new one.
However, it can also happen if there’s an error in the .htaccess file or the DNS settings for the domain.
Either way, it’s not something that Google likes to see and it will likely result in your website being de-indexed from the search engine.
3. Do You Have A Google Penalty?
If your website was previously ranking well in Google search results but suddenly disappeared, it’s possible that you have received a penalty from Google.
This can happen if you have been using black hat SEO techniques, such as cookie stuffing, keyword stuffing or link buying.
If you think you may have received a penalty from Google, you can submit a reconsideration request.
4. Make Sure There’s Not A Plugin Issue
One possibility is that you’re using plugins that are blocking Googlebot from crawling your site. Googlebot is the web crawler used by Google to discover and index new websites.
If Googlebot can’t access your site, then your site won’t be included in the search results. To check if this is the case, try accessing your website via the Googlebot user agent.
You can do this by adding “?user-agent=Googlebot” to the end of your URL.
E.g. www.yourwebsite.com?user-agent=Googlebot
If you’re able to access your site via the Googlebot user agent, then plugins are not the issue.
As a general side note, it’s always a good idea to check your plugins and delete the ones you’re no longer using as too many plugins slow your website down.
5. You Might Use JavaScript To Render Content
Another possibility is that your site uses JavaScript to render content. While Google has gotten better at indexing JavaScript-rendered content, it’s still not perfect.
To ensure that your content is getting indexed, make sure to include a fallback option for users who have JavaScript disabled.
For example, if you’re using ReactJS to render content on your website, include a noscript tag with alternative HTML content.
This will ensure that even if Google can’t index your JavaScript-rendered content, they’ll at least be able to index the alternative HTML content.
6. Maybe You Don’t Have Any Backlinks
An important reason why your website may not be appearing in search results is because it does not have enough high-quality backlinks.
Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. Google uses backlinks as a way to determine the quality of a website.
If your website does not have many high-quality backlinks, it is likely that it will not rank highly in search results.
7. Perhaps You’re Not Targeting Keywords Correctly
In order to get your website to show up in Google search results it is important to use relevant keywords throughout your site. These are the words and phrases that people are searching for when they are looking for websites like yours.
By including these keywords in your site’s content, you can help Google understand what your site is about and make it more likely to show up in search results for those keywords.
This is something we cover extensively in our free Commission Academy course.
8. Check Your Meta Titles & Meta Descriptions
In addition to using relevant keywords throughout the content of your site, you should also optimize your title tags and meta descriptions.
These are the pieces of text that appear in search results when someone searches for a keyword that you have used on your site.
By including relevant keywords and making these tags and descriptions interesting and engaging, you can encourage people to click through to your site from the search results page.
9. Check For Robots.txt File Errors
Another reason why your website may not be appearing in Google search results is if there are errors in your robots.txt file.
The robots.txt file is a file that tells Google which pages on your website should be indexed and which should not. If there are errors in this file, it could prevent your website from being indexed properly.
10. Check for XML Sitemap Errors
In addition to the robots.txt file, another file that can help Google index your website properly is an XML sitemap. This is a file that contains a list of all the pages on your website and helps Google understand the structure of your site.
If there are errors in your XML sitemap, it could prevent Google from indexing your site correctly.
11. Maybe You Need To Brush Up On Your SEO
Finally, it’s also possible that poor SEO is to blame.
Search engine optimization is important whether you have a business website or a personal blog. It’s necessary in order for people to find your site amongst all of the other websites out there vying for attention on the internet.
If you’re not using relevant keywords or if your website isn’t well-optimized for search engines, then it’s unlikely that you’ll show up in the search results.
Fortunately, this is an easy problem to fix; simply invest some time and effort into SEO best practices and watch as your website slowly begins to climb up the rankings.
Top 10 Tips To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
- Choose the right keywords: When you’re selecting keywords for your website, think about what people are likely to type into Google to find your content. Make sure your keywords are relevant to your topic and use them throughout your site – in titles, headings, and in the text itself.
- Use keyword-rich titles: When you’re creating titles for your web pages, make sure to use your target keywords. This will help Google understand what your page is about, and will help it rank higher in search results.
- Optimize your images: When you upload images to your website, be sure to include keywords in the file name and add a brief description of the image using keywords. This will help Google index your images correctly and improve your ranking in search results.
- Publish fresh content regularly: One of the best ways to improve your ranking on Google is by publishing fresh content regularly. This tells Google that your site is up-to-date and valuable, which can help it rank higher in search results.
- Use social media: Social media can be a great way to promote your website and increase its visibility online. Make sure to post links to your website on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and encourage others to do the same.
- Create external links: When other websites link to yours, it tells Google that your site is valuable and authoritative. This can help improve your ranking in search results.
- Use keyword-rich anchor text: When you link to other pages on your website, use keyword-rich anchor text to tell Google what the page is about. This will help improve your website’s SEO ranking.
- Optimize for mobile: More and more people are accessing the internet through their mobile devices, so it’s important that your website is optimized for mobile devices. To do this, make sure all of your content is readable on small screens and use a responsive design template for your website.
- Add a blog: Adding a blog to your website can be a great way to increase traffic and improve your ranking on Google. Blogging regularly will help you attract new visitors to your site, and using keywords in your blog posts will help Google index them correctly.
- Add videos: Videos can be a great way to engage with viewers and attract attention to your website. Make sure all of the videos on your site are high quality and informative and be sure to include keywords in the video title and description tags.
If Your Website Is Indexed But STILL Not Showing
By following the tips laid out above, you should be able to identify the issue and make the necessary changes to get your site indexed and start generating that organic traffic.
But if you’ve double-checked all of these suggestions and still you find nothing wrong with your site. You might just have to wait a bit – sometimes it does take time for Google to index.
