What will be your reaction if you search your website, and it doesn't show up on Google?
How will other users find it with relevant keywords if you cannot find your own website?
This is a problem, if your website is not in the Google search results display, then it can impact your business severely. All your efforts will be in vain. There can be many reasons for this problem. It either can be a temporary technical glitch or some major issue.
Google crawls the internet by recognizing the links on already indexed websites. If your website is new and no other website is linking to your brand, Google will not realize that your website exists. Submitting your website's sitemap to Google Search Console will work in this case.
There are other reasons as well, which affect the visibility of your website on Google. Let's discuss those causes and the solutions to fix the issues.
Reasons why your website is not showing up on Google?
Some significant reasons for the interrupted visibility of your website are:
Your website is new, and Google has not yet indexed your website.
Google may not consider your website trustworthy and relevant for the keywords you want to rank for.
Googlebot crawler is blocked in robots.txt file.
You might have made the mistake of setting your website or pages to 'noindex,' selected “discourage search engines from indexing this site” checkbox; or you might have set another page as the canonical version.
Your website has experienced a penalty either a manual or an algorithmic, and Google has deindexed it.
There might be some technical issues for your website, so Google cannot crawl your website.
These are a few quite common reasons, due to which your website doesn't show up on Google and other search engines.
How to fix the issues?
The above-mentioned reasons can be resolved easily. You only must analyze them at regular time intervals to apply the correct solution.
Submit a sitemap to Google to resolve the indexing issue
Create an XML sitemap of your website and submit it to Google Search Console.
Search Console > Sitemaps > Enter Sitemap URL > Submit
A sitemap indicates how many pages your website has, how to find them, and which pages are important. It also speeds up the indexing process.
Follow correct SEO practices to fix keywords problem
It is possible that Google has indexed your website, but it is not trusting your content for the keywords you have mapped and wish to rank for. You must earn trust, thereby, Google will rank your websites for the same keywords and the visibility issue will get resolved.
You must follow white hat SEO to gain the trust of users and search engines. Research relevant topics and keywords for your business and provide content accordingly. If users land on your website, they should get the content as per keywords you have used to attract them. Otherwise, they will not stay on your page and leave. Google notices users' behavior and accordingly it ranks your website.
Moreover, if you've composed quality content for users and people are linking to it, you will get additional points from Google for link-building. Quality and relevant content plus link-building make an invincible combination and Google starts trusting your website.
Also, avoid using black hat SEO because it ruins your website's image. The fake and unreliable ways to attract an audience do not work and Google either penalizes you or de-indexes your website.
Unblock Googlebot
The robots.txt file helps web crawlers to crawl your pages. If by mistake, you've blocked the crawler, Google will not be able to crawl it and then the website won't show up. The pages that are listed in the robots.txt file will get indexed on Google. So, check the robots.txt file of your website and unblock it (if it is blocked).
Check the 'noindex' meta robots tag
If the 'noindex' tag is applied, then your website pages will not show up on Google. These meta robots prevent Google from listing your website.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
However, if your website is crawled by Google but it has few pages which can’t be indexed; you can find the list of “noindexed” pages from Google Search Console “Coverage” report. It will just look like the following:
Right-click on your page and then select 'view source page' to access the HTML view. Search and find meta name = "robots", if the meta name content includes "noindex", remove it and Google will start displaying your website.
If your website is running on WordPress, you might have activated "Discourage search engines from indexing this site", which can be a reason for the website not showing up on Google.
Go to Settings > Reading and uncheck "search engine visibility".
Use canonical tags carefully
Google prefers unique content and indexes the version that you set as a “canonical”. If your website contains two or more similar pages for any purpose like pagination, categorization, etc.; then make sure it has been set with the “canonical” version of the page which you want to index. Also, make sure self-canonicalization has been applied for the whole pages of your website.
Lift your penalized website up!
If your website used to be in SERPs and now it is not showing up, it implies there is some severe issue. Check Google Search Console to see if your website has received any notice from Google. The notice can be sent for many reasons like, your website doesn't comply with webmaster guidelines, it contains scrape content, use of link spam, or even if it is being hacked. Check the notice and if the website is being penalized by Google, then address the issue for the sake of the website's indexing. As soon as you sort out the problem, Google will re-index the website.
Sort out the technical problems
The website may face some technical glitches, or your website may not be optimized for SERPs or not accessible to search engine crawlers. In both situations, if required then contact an expert local SEO who can help you.
So, these are the solutions to fix the above-mentioned problems for the visibility of your website on search engines. Moreover, focus on curating quality content on your website because poor content neither attracts traffic nor survives on search engines. Long-tail keywords and low competition keywords are good choices to rank higher on SERPs. Try to offer the best user experience to your users (if you follow all the SEO and compliance guidelines, your website will get exceptional UX). Pay careful attention to these basic factors and your website will never face visibility issues on Google and other search engines.
Wrapping up
So, now you know what the reasons for your website can be not showing up on Google and how to fix the issues. Though, if you comply with all the steps to create your website and index it on Google, normally a website doesn’t face any issues. But even after all your sincere efforts, your website is facing some or other problem, you have the solutions.
Remember, SEO is not about getting one thing right. There are a multitude of things you need to focus on, analyzing, and improving is the only way to get the better of it. Happy Analyzing!
We are offering various SEO services that improve your SERPs and are quick to adopt any latest changes in Google search algorithms. We could foster new perspectives about optimizing your website and act as a catalyst in helping you achieve your business goals. Get in touch with us at [email protected] or submit the following request free quote form to know more.
