Why is my website not showing up on Google or Bing? A step-by-step diagnosis

"My website isn't showing up on Google" can mean five different things, with five different causes. Work out which one you have first. It saves a lot of time fixing things that were never broken.

Everything below uses free tools from Google and Bing, and where they have published guidance, it is linked. There is a checklist at the end.

First: which problem do you have?

It helps to know how Google describes the process. Its guide to how Search works sets out three stages: crawling (finding and downloading pages), indexing (analysing and storing them) and serving (showing them for relevant searches). A page can fall out at any of the three. Google also says plainly that it does not guarantee it will crawl, index or serve any page, even one that follows its guidelines.

Step 1: is the site indexed at all?

Quick check. Search Google for site:yourdomain.co.uk, using your own domain. If nothing comes back, Google has not indexed the site, or has barely started.

Proper check. Set up Google Search Console if you have not already, and verify your site. Then use the URL Inspection tool on your homepage. It will say one of:

• "URL is on Google": the page is indexed and eligible to appear, though not guaranteed to.
• "URL is on Google, but has issues": indexed, with problems affecting some features.
• "URL is not on Google": it cannot appear in results. The tool gives the reason.

If the site is new, submit your sitemap in Search Console and request indexing for your main pages. Google's help says indexing after a request typically takes only a day or so but can take much longer, that there is a daily limit on requests, and that requesting does not guarantee indexing.

Common causes when a whole site is missing:

• A "noindex" setting left on from when the site was being built. Some website builders and content management systems have a "discourage search engines" or "hide from search" option. Check it is off.
• robots.txt blocking search engines. Visit yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt. If it says Disallow: / for all user agents, search engines are being told to stay out.
• The site is password-protected or behind a "coming soon" page.
• The domain has only just gone live, and nothing links to it yet.
• A manual action. Rarely, a site is excluded because a Google reviewer found it breaking Google's spam policies. The Manual actions report in Search Console will say if so.

Step 2: some pages are missing

Open the Pages report in Search Console. It lists pages Google knows about but has not indexed, grouped by reason. Reasons you are likely to see:

• Excluded by a "noindex" tag. Intended or not? Check the page settings.
• Blocked by robots.txt.
• Duplicate, or Google chose a different page as the main version. Several pages with near-identical content compete; Google picks one. Merge them, or make them genuinely different.
• Crawled, currently not indexed. Google found the page but did not index it. Google's guidance lists low content quality among the common reasons pages are not indexed. Make the page more useful, more specific, and linked from other pages on your site.
• Discovered, currently not indexed. Google knows the page exists but has not crawled it yet. Make sure it is in your sitemap and linked from other pages.
• Not found (404). An old page that no longer exists. If it has a replacement, redirect it permanently.

Then check your own site for pages that nothing links to. A page that is not linked from anywhere else on your site is harder for search engines to find and to judge as important.

Step 3: indexed, but not ranking for what you sell

This is often the real problem, and the hardest, because the cause is usually not technical. If the URL Inspection tool says your pages are on Google, but they do not appear for the searches you care about, the question is why Google prefers other pages for those searches.

Work through these:

• Are you searching for the right thing? Open the Performance report in Search Console and look at the searches your pages already appear for, and how often. You may already be appearing, just lower down, or for different wording than you expected.
• Does a page on your site clearly answer that search? If someone searches for a service in a town and your site mentions neither in plain words, there is nothing for Google to match. One clear page per main service, saying what it is, who it is for and where you offer it, is the foundation.
• Is the page better than what ranks now? Search for it yourself. Read the pages that come top. Yours needs to be at least as useful to someone asking that question.
• Does anyone else mention you? Links and mentions from other relevant, reputable sites are part of how search engines judge trust. A new site with no links has a harder time than an established one.
• Is the page fast and usable on a phone? Test it with PageSpeed Insights.
• Is the page up to date? Old prices, old dates and broken links all count against it with readers, and with search engines.

Google's own guidance on helpful, people-first content is the best short summary of what it rewards, and it is worth reading before rewriting anything. If you are weighing whether more SEO work would pay, see is SEO worth it for a small business?

Step 4: your website shows, but not in the map results

The map results come from your Google Business Profile, not your website. If you do not appear there, the profile is usually the reason: not claimed, not verified, in the wrong category, missing details, or a long way from the searcher. Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence.

Our local SEO checklist works through the profile step by step, including the settings that can get a profile suspended. If yours already has been, see what to do when a Business Profile is suspended.

Step 5: showing on Google but not Bing, or the reverse

Each search engine keeps its own index. Being on Google says nothing about Bing, which also grounds Microsoft Copilot's answers.

• Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools. Microsoft's help on adding a site says you can import it from Google Search Console, which verifies it automatically, and that data usually takes about 48 hours to appear.
• Submit your sitemap there too.
• Use Bing's URL Inspection to see how Bing sees a page.
• Tell Bing when pages change using IndexNow, which Bing's webmaster guidelines ask for.
• Check robots.txt does not block Bingbot.

We go through the rest, including Bing Places and Copilot, in how to get your business on Bing, Bing Maps and Copilot.

Step 6: it used to show up, and now it does not

A drop is a different problem from never appearing, and it usually has a findable cause. Work out when it started, then look at what changed around that date.

• Did the website change? A redesign, a new platform, new page addresses or a change of domain are among the usual causes of a sudden drop. If old addresses were not redirected permanently to the new ones, search engines lose the pages that used to rank. Google's guidance on site moves covers what should have been done, and it can still be done now.
• Did a setting change? A "noindex" switched on by mistake, or a robots.txt file copied from a test site, can remove a whole site. The URL Inspection tool will show it.
• Did Google change something? Google publishes its ranking updates and incidents on the Google Search Status Dashboard. If your drop lines up with an announced update, compare the pages you lost with the ones that now rank above you, and read Google's guidance on helpful content again with those pages in mind.
• Is there a manual action? Check the Manual actions report.
• Did a competitor improve? Search your main terms and look at what now ranks above you. Sometimes nothing is wrong with your site; someone else simply got better.
• Is it seasonal? Compare with the same weeks last year in the Performance report before assuming something has gone wrong.
• Did your tracking break rather than your traffic? If the drop is in Google Analytics but not in Search Console, the problem may be measurement, not visibility.

In Search Console's Performance report, set a date range either side of the drop and use the comparison view to see which searches and which pages lost clicks. That usually narrows the cause to a handful of pages.

How long fixes take to show

Nobody can promise, and Google does not. Roughly, though:

• Indexing problems, such as a stray noindex or a blocked robots.txt, can clear once Google recrawls the pages, which requesting indexing and an up-to-date sitemap can prompt. Google's help says indexing after a request typically takes a day or so, but can take longer.
• Redirect problems after a site move take longer. Google says that for medium-sized sites it can take a few weeks or more for new addresses to replace old ones.
• Ranking problems, where the page is indexed but not good enough, take the longest, because they depend on improving the page and earning links and mentions, and then on Google reassessing it.

Keep a note of what you changed and when, so you can see what worked.

What does not help

• Paying for a "submission" service. Search engines find sites through sitemaps and links. Google's guidance on hiring an SEO warns against anyone offering "priority submit".
• Requesting indexing over and over. There is a daily limit, and Google says a request does not guarantee indexing.
• Buying links. Google's spam policies treat buying links for ranking purposes as link spam.
• Stuffing pages with town names and keywords. Write for the person searching.

The diagnosis checklist

The ticks are saved in this browser.

• I know which of the five problems I have.
• My site is verified in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• My sitemap is submitted to both.
• URL Inspection says my main pages are on Google.
• No page I want found has "noindex" set, and robots.txt is not blocking search engines.
• I have read the reasons in the Pages report and fixed what I can.
• Each main service has a clear page that says what it is and where I offer it.
• My Google Business Profile is claimed, verified and complete.
• I have checked the Performance report for the searches I already appear for.
• There is no manual action on my site.

If you have worked through this and still cannot see why, our SEO audit and first fixes is a fixed £2,500 and starts with exactly this diagnosis, then fixes what matters most. Our checklist of what an SEO audit should include shows what it covers.