Why Your Pretty Website Is Not in Google Search And How to Fix It

You have this beautiful website, but aren’t getting any traffic from search engines. What’s up?!

Having a beautiful design won’t help if your site is not in Google Search results. Potential customers may never find your website, and what a shame that would be!

So if you’re seeing super low (or no) traffic from search engines, it might be a reason listed in this blog. Luckily, I provide some easy fixes, too.

Key Takeaways:

• Why you can’t rely on design to get found in search results
• Some reasons why your website is not in Google search
• How to tell if your website is on Google
• A few ideas to fix your visibility

Design Alone Won’t Get You Found

“If it’s live, Google will find it.”

Ugh, I wish that were the case for all of us.

As much as I love my web designer girlies, design alone won’t get you found on Google.

Google ranks based on content, structure, and SEO signals.

Design is still hugely important because it impacts the user experience. And search engines just want to provide good experiences to their users, so design indirectly impacts SEO. 

7 Reasons a Website is Not in Google Search

So why isn’t your website on Google? There are a few reasons you can look into.

Break down each with a short explanation:

1. It’s Not Indexed

One of the most common reasons a page is not in Google search is that it hasn’t been indexed yet. It could be as simple as forgetting to submit your sitemap to Google. Without your sitemap, Google doesn’t know your website exists!

Here’s how to submit your sitemap in Google Search Console:

• If you haven’t yet, verify your site ownership.
• In the left-hand menu, click “Sitemaps.”
• Under “Add a new sitemap”, enter the URL (usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml)
• Click Submit.

You’ll see a confirmation that your sitemap was successfully submitted. It might take up to a few weeks for Google to crawl and index all your pages, so be patient!

Once it’s finished, your pages will start to appear in search results.

2. Weak or Missing SEO Foundations

If you don’t have SEO titles, meta descriptions, or a hierarchical header structure, it’s harder for search engines to crawl and index your website.

Here’s how you can write effective SEO metadata.

3. Thin or Generic Content

The goal of new content is to provide the most value about the topic. If you have super short, generic, or AI-written content, Google isn’t going to want to send traffic to those pages. It’s not helpful!

Build out your content and make it the best resource.

4. Slow Site Speed

Poor site speed = poor user experience. Run your website through PageSpeed Insights to see how quickly your website loads on mobile and desktop. Do what you can to improve the speed.

5. Mobile-Unfriendly Design

Google indexes the mobile version of your website FIRST. So you must have a mobile-friendly website. Otherwise, it could hurt your rankings.

6. Blocked by Robots.txt or Noindex Tags

Sometimes you’re accidentally telling Google not to crawl your pages. 

And that’s okay in certain situations. For example, you don’t want Google to crawl your privacy page or legal pages. There’s no reason for those to be in search results.

But if you have a Noindex tag on pages you DO want on Google, you’ll want to fix that!

7. Lack of Backlinks

Although Google hasn’t explicitly said backlinks are a ranking factor, they play some kind of role. Backlinks indicate how trustworthy you are as a resource. Other people are giving you their gold star of approval and recommendation, which Google does notice.

Here’s how you can start to earn more high-quality backlinks.

How to Tell if Google Can See Your Website

There’s actually a really easy way to see if your pages are on Google!

Type site:yourdomain.com in Google. This will show you every page related to your domain that’s indexed and in search engine result pages.

If you notice some pages are missing, log in to Google Search Console. Here, you can see which pages haven’t been indexed yet and manually request indexing. 

This is basically Google’s approval process to discover and rank your pages in search results. By manually requesting indexing, you get bumped to the top of their list.

Actionable SEO Steps to Fix It

Even though you are not in Google search right now, it doesn’t mean you can’t be! Follow these quick wins and long-term strategies to get indexed and found in search results.

Quick Wins:

• Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.
• Fix noindex and robots.txt issues.
• Add keyword-rich page titles and meta descriptions.

Long-Term Strategies:

• Publish high-quality, keyword-optimized blog content.
• Improve site speed and mobile responsiveness.
• Build backlinks through partnerships, guest posts, and PR.
• Maintain regular technical SEO audits.

Not in Google Search? Not Anymore!

Your beautiful website can be just as visible as it is stunning. Do an SEO audit of your website to make sure it’s optimized for search engines. 

And if you find out that your website and blog need some major updates, check out my blog optimizations package! I’ll help you get your blogs optimized and ready for search engines.

FAQs About Why You’re Not in Google Search

How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google?

It depends on how quickly Google crawls and indexes your website. It can take up to a few weeks. Submitting your sitemap through Google Search Console can speed things up.

What does ‘noindex’ mean?

A Noindex tag tells Google not to show a page in search results. It can hurt your visibility if it’s accidentally applied to pages you want in search results.

If I redesign my site, will I lose my rankings?

Possibly. When I rebranded my website, I lost my rankings because I changed my domain. My new domain was brand new and didn’t have any authority yet. If you keep your domain and just redesign it, you should keep your rankings.