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 any of five problems, and each has a different cause. Work out which one you've got before you touch anything, or you could spend a weekend fixing something that was never broken. Everything here uses free tools from Google and Bing, and their own guidance is linked as we go.

First: which problem do you have?

It helps to know where a page can fall out. Google's guide to how Search works describes three stages: crawling, which is finding and downloading pages; indexing, which is analysing and storing them; and serving, which is showing them for relevant searches. A page can drop out at any of the three, and Google says plainly that it doesn't guarantee it will crawl, index or serve any page, even one that follows its guidelines.

Step 1: is the site indexed at all?

The quick check. Search Google for site:yourdomain.co.uk, with your own domain in place of that one. If nothing comes back, Google hasn't indexed the site, or has barely started.

The proper check. Set up Google Search Console, Google's free tool for seeing how your site appears in its results, and verify that you own the site. Then run your homepage through the URL Inspection tool, which will give you one of three answers:

• "URL is on Google" means the page is indexed and allowed to appear, though it isn't guaranteed to.
• "URL is on Google, but has issues" means it's indexed, but there are problems with some of the extras it could show.
• "URL is not on Google" means it can't appear in results at all, and the tool tells you why.

If the site is new, submit your sitemap, the list of pages you hand to search engines, and request indexing for your main pages. Google's help says that indexing after a request typically takes only a day or so but can take much longer, that there's a daily limit on requests, and that asking doesn't guarantee it happens.

The usual reasons 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.
  What good looks like

  Your website builder's "discourage search engines" or "hide from search" option is off, and URL Inspection shows your main pages as indexable.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in The launch checklist: what to check before a new website or campaign goes live.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  Your live robots.txt has no "Disallow: /" for all user agents, and nothing else blocks the pages you want found.

  Takes two minutes. Covered in The launch checklist: what to check before a new website or campaign goes live.

• The site is password-protected or behind a "coming soon" page.
  What good looks like

  A visitor who is not logged in sees the real site, not a password prompt or a "coming soon" page.

  Takes two minutes, in a private browser window. Covered in full above.

• The domain has only just gone live, and nothing links to it yet.
  What good looks like

  If the domain is new, you have submitted the sitemap, and at least one other site, such as your Business Profile or a directory, links to it.

  Takes twenty minutes. Covered in Local SEO for UK businesses: the complete checklist.

• A penalty applied by hand. Rarely, a site is shut out because a Google reviewer found it breaking Google's spam policies. The Manual actions report in Search Console tells you if that has happened.
  What good looks like

  The Manual actions report in Search Console says no issues were detected.

  Takes two minutes. Covered in full above.

Step 2: some pages are missing

Open the Pages report in Search Console. It lists the pages Google knows about but hasn't indexed, grouped by reason, and these are the reasons you're most likely to see:

• Excluded by a "noindex" setting. The page carries a setting that tells search engines not to show it. Check whether that was deliberate.
• Blocked by robots.txt.
• Duplicate, or Google chose a different page as the main version. When several pages are near-identical, Google picks one of them to show. Either merge them or make each one genuinely different.
• Crawled, currently not indexed. Google found the page and didn't index it. Its guidance lists low content quality among the common reasons for this, so make the page more useful and more specific, and link to it from other pages on your site.
• Discovered, currently not indexed. Google knows the page exists but hasn't read it yet. Make sure it's in your sitemap and that other pages link to it.
• Not found (404). This is an old page that no longer exists. If something has replaced it, set up a permanent redirect, which sends anyone visiting the old address to the new one.

Then look for pages that nothing else on your site links to. A page like that is harder for a search engine to find, and harder for it to treat as important.

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

This is usually the real problem, and the hardest, because the cause isn't technical. If the URL Inspection tool says your pages are on Google but they don't appear for the searches you care about, the question is why Google prefers other pages for those searches. These are the questions to work through:

• Are you searching for the right thing? Open the Performance report in Search Console and look at which searches your pages already appear for, and how often. You may be appearing already, just further down the page, or for different wording than you expected.
  What good looks like

  You have looked at the Performance report for the searches your pages already appear for, and how often, before judging where you rank.

  Takes twenty minutes. Covered in full above.

• Does a page on your site clearly answer that search? If someone searches for a service in a town and your site mentions neither the service nor the town in plain words, Google has nothing to match. One clear page for each main service, saying what it is, who it's for and where you offer it, is the foundation.
  What good looks like

  For each main service, one page says what it is, who it is for and where you offer it, in plain words.

  Takes an hour or two per page. Covered in Landing pages that convert: the structure, section by section.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  You have read the top results for your main search, and your page is at least as useful to someone asking that question.

  Takes half an hour per search. Covered in Content strategy on a small team: publish less, earn more.

• Does anyone else mention you? Links and mentions from other relevant, reputable sites are part of how a search engine judges whether to trust you. A new site with no links has a harder time than an established one.
  What good looks like

  Search Console's Links report shows at least a few relevant sites linking to you, and you have a list of places where you should be mentioned and are not.

  Takes half an hour. Covered in Local SEO for UK businesses: the complete checklist.

• Is the page fast and usable on a phone? Test it with PageSpeed Insights.
  What good looks like

  The mobile results in PageSpeed Insights show nothing marked poor for the page, and it reads easily on a phone.

  Takes twenty minutes to test; fixes vary. Covered in Nine homepage mistakes.

• Is the page up to date? Old prices, old dates and broken links all put readers off.
  What good looks like

  Prices, dates and links on the page are current, and broken links have been fixed or removed.

  Takes twenty minutes per page. Covered in full above.

Before you rewrite anything, read Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content. It's the best short summary of what Google rewards. And if you're wondering whether more SEO work would pay for itself, I'd settle whether SEO is worth it for your business first.

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're missing from them, the profile is usually why: it hasn't been claimed or verified, it's in the wrong category, it's missing details, or you're a long way from whoever is searching. 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 one suspended. If yours already has been, you'll need the steps for getting a suspended profile back.

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

Each search engine keeps its own list of pages, so being on Google tells you nothing about Bing. And Bing matters more than its share of searches suggests, because Microsoft's Copilot uses it to find what it tells people.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  Bing Webmaster Tools shows your site as verified, imported from Search Console or added by hand.

  Takes fifteen minutes. Covered in Get your business on Bing.

• Submit your sitemap there too.
  What good looks like

  The Sitemaps section in Bing Webmaster Tools shows your sitemap as processed without errors.

  Takes five minutes. Covered in Get your business on Bing.

• Use Bing's URL Inspection to see how Bing sees a page.
  What good looks like

  Bing's URL Inspection shows your main pages as indexed, or tells you why not.

  Takes fifteen minutes. Covered in Get your business on Bing.

• Tell Bing when pages change using IndexNow, a way of telling Bing straight away when a page changes, which Bing's webmaster guidelines ask for.
  What good looks like

  Your site sends IndexNow notifications when pages change, or you have a dated plan to add them.

  Takes fifteen minutes if your platform supports it. Covered in Get your business on Bing.

• Check your robots.txt file doesn't block Bingbot, which is the software Bing uses to read your pages.
  What good looks like

  Your live robots.txt has no rule blocking Bingbot, by name or through a rule aimed at every crawler.

  Takes two minutes. Covered in Should you block AI bots from your site?.

Bing Places and Copilot are worth sorting out while you're there, and both are in how to get your business on Bing, Bing Maps and Copilot.

Step 6: it used to show up, and now it doesn't

A drop is a different problem from never appearing, and it usually has a cause you can find. Work out when it started, then look at what changed around that date. If the change was a new site, our launch checklist covers the usual culprits, including a robots.txt that closed our own site for twelve days, so we know how easily it happens.

• Did the website change? A redesign, a new platform, new page addresses or a change of domain are the usual causes of a sudden drop. If the old addresses weren't permanently redirected 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.
  What good looks like

  You have listed any redesign, new platform, changed page addresses or new domain around the time of the drop, and every old address redirects permanently to its new page.

  Takes an hour. Covered in The launch checklist: what to check before a new website or campaign goes live.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  URL Inspection shows no noindex on your main pages, and the robots.txt report shows no recent change that blocks them.

  Takes fifteen minutes. Covered in The launch checklist: what to check before a new website or campaign goes live.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  You have checked the Google Search Status Dashboard for announced updates around the date of the drop, and compared the pages you lost with those now above you.

  Takes half an hour. Covered in Does Google penalise content written with AI?.

• Is there a manual action? Check the Manual actions report.
  What good looks like

  The Manual actions report says no issues were detected.

  Takes two minutes. Covered in full above.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  You have searched your main terms and looked at what now ranks above you, and noted what those pages do better.

  Takes half an hour. Covered in full above.

• Is it seasonal? Compare with the same weeks last year in the Performance report before assuming something has gone wrong.
  What good looks like

  You have compared the same weeks last year in the Performance report before deciding something has gone wrong.

  Takes ten minutes. Covered in full above.

• 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.
  What good looks like

  You have compared Google Analytics with Search Console for the same period; if only analytics dropped, you are checking the tracking, not the rankings.

  Takes twenty minutes. Covered in The only five GA4 reports you need.

Then open the Performance report in Search Console, 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 down to a handful of pages.

How long fixes take to show

Nobody can promise, and Google doesn't. Roughly, though, it goes like this:

• Indexing problems, such as a stray noindex or a blocked robots.txt, can clear once Google reads the pages again, and requesting indexing and keeping your sitemap up to date can prompt it to. Step 1 gives Google's timings.
• Redirect problems after a site move take longer. Google says that for medium-sized sites it can take a few weeks or more for the new addresses to replace the old ones.
• Ranking problems, where the page is indexed but not good enough, take longest of all. 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 that afterwards you can tell what worked.

What doesn't help

• Paying for a "submission" service. Search engines find sites through sitemaps and links, and Google's guidance on hiring an SEO warns against anyone offering "priority submit".
• Requesting indexing over and over. There's a daily limit, and Google says a request doesn't guarantee indexing anyway.
• 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, not for the search engine.

The diagnosis checklist

Once you've been through the steps, run down this list to make sure nothing has slipped through.

• 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'd rather hand the job to someone else, it helps to know what an SEO audit should include, so you can judge the one you're given. And if you still can't see what's wrong, our SEO audit and first fixes starts with exactly this diagnosis and then fixes what matters most, for a fixed £2,500.