Why is my website not showing up on Google?
There is a big difference between not being indexed, not ranking, and not ranking for the words you expect. Work through these checks in order - the first two take under a minute.
First: is Google indexing you at all?
Search Google for site:yourdomain.com. If results appear, you are indexed and the problem is ranking, not indexing - skip ahead. If nothing appears, Google either has not found the site yet, cannot crawl it, or has been told not to index it.
Check you are not blocking Google by accident
Two one-line mistakes remove sites from Google entirely: a robots.txt file that disallows everything, and a noindex meta tag left over from development. Both are extremely common after a site launch or replatform. View yourdomain.com/robots.txt and your page source for a meta robots tag before assuming anything more exotic.
A brand-new domain takes time
Google discovers new sites through links and sitemaps. If the site is weeks old with no links pointing at it, indexing can take days to weeks. Speed it up: verify the site in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap, and use URL Inspection to request indexing of key pages.
Indexed but not ranking? That is authority and competition
For competitive phrases, established sites with years of links will outrank a new site even when the new site’s page is better. The fix is patience plus specificity: target longer, more specific phrases your customers use, and earn links from real directories, industry sites, and partners.
Ranking for your name but nothing else
If you appear for your business name but not for what you sell, your pages probably do not use the words customers search. A page titled Solutions will never rank for emergency plumber Parramatta. Every important page needs a title and heading that says, in plain language, what it is and where.
Diagnose it properly in one pass
The AuditHQ free scan checks indexability signals - robots.txt, noindex tags, sitemap presence, canonical tags, title quality - across your site in about 60 seconds, and the full technical suite goes deeper with crawlability and structured-data checks. It is faster than working through each item by hand.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google?
Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Submitting a sitemap through Google Search Console and earning a few real links typically shortens it substantially. If it has been more than a month, something is usually blocking indexing.
Why does my site show up on Bing but not Google?
The engines crawl independently, so a block or penalty can apply to one and not the other. Check Google Search Console first - it reports crawl errors, indexing status, and manual actions directly.
Do I need to pay to appear on Google?
No. Organic listings are free and earned. Google Ads puts you above organic results for money, which can be worth it while organic authority builds, but paying is never required to be indexed.