“Why is my website not showing up on Google?” is one of the most common questions I get from business owners. Sometimes the site doesn’t appear at all. More often, the homepage shows up when you search the business name, but the service pages, the ones that should bring in enquiries, are nowhere to be seen.
There’s nearly always a reason, and most of the time it can be found and fixed. When I went through our own website, I found several of these problems on it too: an important page with the wrong canonical tag, old page addresses that stopped working after a restructure, several pages all competing for the same search and service pages with almost no links pointing to them. So none of this is theory. Here’s how I’d check it, in order.
First, check if your website is indexed on Google
Google can only show pages in its search results once it has managed to crawl and index them. The quickest check is to type site:yourdomain.ie into Google, using your own domain. You’ll see roughly which of your pages Google has in its index. If nothing comes up, Google either hasn’t found your site yet or something is telling it to stay away.
For a proper answer, set up a Google Search Console account. It’s free, and it’s the only place Google tells you directly what it thinks of your site. Paste a page address into the URL Inspection tool at the top and it will tell you whether the page is indexed, and if not, why. The Pages report shows every page that isn’t indexed and the reason for each one.
1. Your website is new and Google hasn’t found it yet
If your site has only just gone live, Google may simply not have crawled it yet. This is the most common reason a new website is not showing on Google. Adding your site to Search Console, submitting your sitemap and requesting indexing for your main pages helps. Once you’ve submitted your sitemap, new pages can take anything from a few days to a few weeks to appear, and longer to rank well for competitive searches.
2. Something is telling Google not to index the page
This one catches out a lot of people. Many websites are built with search engines blocked while they’re being designed, and the setting never gets switched off at launch. In WordPress, check Settings, then Reading, and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not ticked. SEO plugins like Rank Math and Yoast also have a noindex setting on each page, so check the page itself too.
Your robots.txt file can also block Google from crawling parts of your site. Search Console will flag pages that are “blocked by robots.txt” or “excluded by noindex tag”.
3. The canonical tag points somewhere else
A canonical tag tells Google which version of a page is the main one. If a page’s canonical points to a different address, Google will usually index that other address and ignore the page you actually want to rank. This happened on one of our own service pages. The page existed and looked fine to visitors, but its canonical pointed to another URL, so Google left it out. In Search Console it shows as “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” or “Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user”.
4. Pages moved and the old addresses were never redirected
If you’ve redesigned your website, moved to a new platform or reorganised your pages, the old addresses may now lead to a “page not found” error. Any rankings and links the old pages had built up are lost, and Google has to discover the new pages from scratch.
The fix is a 301 redirect from each old address to its new one. When I checked our own site after a restructure, there were 18 old addresses returning errors, including service pages. Every one of them now redirects to the right page. Search Console’s “Not found (404)” list is the place to start.
5. Several of your pages are competing for the same search
This is called keyword cannibalisation. You might have a service page, two blog posts and an old landing page all targeting “web design Dundalk”, for example. Instead of one strong page, Google sees four weaker ones and isn’t sure which to show, so none of them ranks as well as it could. Sometimes Google even picks a blog post over the service page you’d prefer people to land on.
In Search Console, open the Performance report, click on a search term and then the Pages tab. If several pages show up for the same term, that’s a sign. The fix is to decide which page should rank, merge the weaker content into it where it makes sense, redirect the old pages and change the focus of the others.
6. Your pages have the same title and description
Every page needs its own title tag and meta description. When several pages share the same ones, often because a page was copied as a template, Google has a harder time telling them apart and working out what each one is about. I see this a lot on sites where every service page was built from the same starting page. Look at the title that shows in your browser tab on each page, or run the site through a free crawler, and fix any duplicates.
7. Nothing links to your service pages
Google finds and judges pages partly through links, including the links within your own site. A service page that’s only reachable from a dropdown menu, with no links from your blog posts or other pages, is a weak signal that the page matters. Pages with no internal links at all are called orphan pages, and Google may barely crawl them.
Linking your blog posts and guides to the relevant service page, using natural wording that describes the service, is one of the simplest things you can do. On our own site, adding links from related posts to the right service pages was one of the first jobs.
8. The page doesn’t match search intent
Sometimes the page is indexed and technically fine, but it’s thin or it doesn’t match what someone searching that term wants. That’s called search intent. A service page with two paragraphs and a contact form is up against competitors with prices, processes, examples and answers to common questions. Look at the pages that do rank for your main search and ask yourself honestly whether yours is as useful. If it isn’t, that’s the job.
9. Your H1 heading is missing or hidden
Each page should have one main heading (the H1) that says clearly what the page is about. Some themes and page builders hide it, or use several H1s on the same page. On our own site, a small piece of theme code was hiding the page title on blog posts. It’s a small thing, but it’s a clear signal to Google and it’s easy to get right.
10. For local searches, your Google Business Profile matters as much as your website
For searches like “plumber near me” or a service plus your town, Google often shows the map pack first, and that’s driven mainly by your Google Business Profile, your reviews and how close you are to the person searching. A website that’s fine on its own can still struggle locally if the profile is incomplete, has the wrong category or has very few reviews. My guide on how to get more Google reviews is a good place to start on that side.
A quick checklist to help Google show your website
- Search site:yourdomain.ie to see what Google has indexed.
- Set up Search Console, submit your sitemap and inspect your main pages.
- Make sure search engines aren’t discouraged in your WordPress settings and the page isn’t set to noindex.
- Check each important page’s canonical tag points to itself.
- Redirect any old addresses that now show “page not found”.
- Give every search term one clear page, and merge or refocus pages that compete.
- Give every page its own title, meta description and a single H1.
- Link your blog posts to the relevant service pages.
- Make sure each service page properly answers what people are searching for.
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete and active.
Most of these are part of what we check in technical SEO, and they’re usually the first things we fix when we take on SEO for a business. If you’d rather someone went through it for you, our free visibility audit is a good starting point.
FAQ
How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google?
It varies. Once Google has found your site, pages can appear within a few days, but it can take a few weeks, and longer to rank for competitive searches. Setting up Search Console and submitting your sitemap helps Google find it sooner.
Why is my website not showing up on Google anymore?
If your site used to appear and has dropped out, think about what changed. A redesign, a move to a new platform or new page addresses without redirects is the most common cause. A plugin or theme update that switched on noindex, an expired domain or hosting problems can do it too. Search Console’s Pages report and any messages in your Search Console account will usually point to the technical issue.
Does this apply to Wix and Squarespace websites?
Yes. The platform changes where the settings are, but the checks are the same. Wix and Squarespace both have options to hide a site or page from search engines, and both let you connect Google Search Console and submit a sitemap.
Why does my website show up when I search the business name but not my services?
Your business name is easy to rank for because very few other sites use it. Service searches are competitive, so the service pages need to be indexed, clearly focused, well linked internally and genuinely useful. Any of the problems above can hold them back.
Is requesting indexing in Search Console enough?
It helps Google find a page faster, but it doesn’t guarantee the page will be indexed or ranked. If there’s a noindex tag, a wrong canonical or another page competing for the same search, you need to fix that first.
Can I pay Google to show my website?
You can appear in the ads above the results with Google Ads, but you can’t pay to rank in the normal results. Ads can bring in enquiries while the SEO work builds up. You can see how that works in my guide to Google Ads costs in Ireland.
