You search for your business, or for the thing you do, and your website is nowhere. It is one of the most common questions we get, and it is also one of the most misunderstood. The good news is that the reasons a site does not show up on Google are usually a short, fixable list. Let us go through them in order, most common first, with a way to check each one.

First, find out if Google even knows you exist

Before anything else, run this test. Go to Google and search for site:yourdomain.co.uk (swap in your real domain). This asks Google to show only pages it has stored from your site.

• If you see a list of your pages, you are indexed. Your problem is ranking, not visibility. Skip to point 3.
• If you see nothing, or "no results", Google has not indexed your site yet. Points 1 and 2 are for you.

1. Your site is simply too new

If you launched recently, this is almost always it. Google has to discover, crawl, and index a new site before it can appear, and that can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Nothing is broken. You are just early.

You can speed it up. Verify your site in Google Search Console (it is free), submit your sitemap, and use the URL inspection tool to request indexing for your key pages. That is the single most useful thing a new site can do, and most businesses never do it.

2. Your site is accidentally telling Google to stay away

This one catches people out constantly. A surprising number of new sites ship with a setting that blocks search engines entirely. It usually comes from one of three places: a "discourage search engines" box left ticked from the build, a noindex tag left on the pages, or a robots.txt file that disallows crawling.

If the site: test above showed nothing and your site is more than a few weeks old, this is the prime suspect. Search Console will flag it under "Pages" as "blocked" or "excluded by noindex". It is a five-minute fix once you find it.

3. You are indexed, but not ranking for the searches that matter

Here is the most common real situation. You search your business name and your site appears, so it is clearly indexed. But search "plumber in Cardiff" or "wedding photographer near me" and you are nowhere.

That is not a visibility problem, it is a ranking problem, and it is completely normal early on. Ranking for competitive terms takes relevant content, local signals, and trust built over time. Showing up for your own name is easy. Showing up for the terms your future customers actually type is the work.

4. Your pages never say what you do, or where

Google can only match you to a search if your pages make it obvious what you offer and where you offer it. We see sites whose homepage says "Welcome" and "Passionate about quality" and almost nothing else. There is nothing for Google to connect to a real search.

Say it plainly. Your pages should state the service and the area in clear language a human would use. If you serve several places, give each one a proper page written for real people, not a list of town names crammed into the footer. We wrote a plain-English guide to this in how to get found on Google in Cardiff.

5. A new domain in a crowded market takes time

If you are in a competitive niche, a brand new website is starting from zero trust against sites that have been building authority for years. You will not leapfrog them in week one. Steady, genuine SEO closes that gap: useful content, a complete and active Google Business Profile, real reviews, and the same business details everywhere. There is no shortcut worth buying, and the ones that promise instant results usually get you penalised.

6. Something technical is holding you back

Less common, but worth ruling out. A site that is painfully slow, does not work on mobile, or is riddled with broken pages can be crawled less and ranked lower. Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights and open it on your own phone. If it is a struggle for you, it is a struggle for Google too.

What to actually do next

Work through it in this order:

1. Run the site:yourdomain.co.uk test to see whether you are indexed at all.
2. Connect Google Search Console, submit your sitemap, and request indexing for your main pages.
3. Rule out an accidental noindex or blocked robots.txt.
4. Make sure every page clearly states what you do and where.
5. Then build the content, local presence, and reviews that earn rankings over time.

Most sites that "are not on Google" are either too new, quietly blocking it, or indexed but not yet ranking. All three are fixable. If you would rather have someone diagnose exactly which one is happening to you and put it right, that is a core part of how we help businesses get found.