Introduction: The Importance of Google Visibility
Your website’s visibility on Google is very crucial for obvious reasons. What is the point of having a website that doesn’t appear on your target audience’s search engine result page?
Ranking on Google is not an easy game, and every website owner has asked themself, “Why is my website not showing up on Google?” at least once. Even after you have done all the “right things,” your efforts may not show results.
Are you trying to figure out why your website is not showing up on Google? Here are the top 10 reasons.
Reason 1: Your Website is New
If your website is new, search engines may need time to find it.
New web pages don’t instantly appear on Google’s search results. If you have just launched your website, expecting it to appear on the first few Google search results is just wishful thinking.
There is a possibility that search engine crawlers have not indexed your website, due to which it isn’t appearing on search results.
A straightforward way to determine whether Google knows about your website is to conduct an advanced Google search. Write “site: followed by your website name” on the search bar. If at least one page from your website shows up, it means that Google knows about your website. If there isn’t even one search result, Google doesn’t know your site exists.
Fix: Be Patient and Consistent with SEO
SEO is a long game that requires patience and consistency. But don’t lose hope.
If your website isn’t showing up on search results, you must create a sitemap and submit it via Google search console.
For this:
- Open your Google search console account
- go to sitemap
- Enter your sitemap URL
- Submit
A site map tells Google which pages from your website are important and how they can be found. It can also speed up Google’s index process.
Reason 2: Your Website Isn’t Indexed
The noindex tag is an HTML code that tells Google not to show certain pages on the search results.
Even after you have created a sitemap and submitted it on the Google search console, it won’t show results if the no index tag is not removed.
Maybe you don’t remember putting a no-index meta tag, but there is a possibility that your website has it.
Many web developers use the “no index” tag while developing a website and forget to remove it before it has been published.
Fix: Requesting Google to Index Your Website
After you have created the sitemap of your website and submitted it on the Google search console, it will tell you about the no-index pages on the coverage report. You can simply remove the no-index tag from your website to make it visible on a search engine result page.
If you have submitted your sitemap and are waiting for Google to index it, you can alternatively use site audit software to check whether it has a no-index tag.
Reason 3: Your Site Lacks High-Quality Content
If your website doesn’t have high-quality content, it may not appear in search results.
Google always provides high-quality content relevant to its users. It ensures the user’s search intent is met when showing the results. Therefore, Google only ranks those websites on its result page that it deems to have relevant content for its users.
Fix: Creating Engaging, Relevant Content
There are a few ways you can create high-quality content. Firstly, you must publish relevant content for your target audience.
Moreover, check that your content is well structured and has relevant keywords. Here, you must understand that not all keywords are going to rank. So, strategically conduct keyword research for your content.
Highly competitive keywords may not boost your site ranking. In this case, identify long tail keywords relevant to your niche.
In addition, ensure that your content holds authority and can gain your audience’s trust. Also, check that the published content is not duplicated because it may impact your ranking.
Reason 4: Your Site Has Poor SEO
SEO combines various aspects that impact your site’s ranking on search engines.
Your website may have poor SEO because of the following reasons:
- You are not publishing high-quality content
- You are overusing or underutilizing keywords
- You have technical SEO issues such as broken links, poor mobile optimization, and slow page loading.
- You are ignoring user experience.
- Ignoring SEO trends
Fix: Implementing Best SEO Practices
If your site has poor SEO, fixing it will require a holistic outlook. You have to consider on-page, off-page, and technical SEO of all the pages of your website.
For the beginning, start with optimizing your content and using relevant keywords. Remember that competitive keywords can be challenging to rank for brand new websites. In this situation, do competitor research and aim for keywords that the big players in your niche are not targeting.
Additionally, provide high-quality backlinks for your website to build its authority.
You also need to check the meta tags of your webpage. These elements provide valuable information to search engines about your web pages and impact your page ranking.
Additionally, solve any technical issues that your website might have and optimize it for both desktop version and mobile version.
Reason 5: Your Website is Penalized by Google
If you notice a drastic decrease in your organic search traffic, you might have been penalized by Google.
Now, you may be wondering why you have been penalized by Google. Well, there are many reasons for this.
To find out why, you must check whether your site has been banned or deindexed by Google.
Firstly, perform an advanced search on Google to find if there is any data about your website. If you are unable to see any results, it means that your website has been banned.
Some possible reasons your website has been penalized or banned are:
- The site has toxic or broken links
- Slow page loading
- Anchor text has been over-optimized
- The site has duplicate content
- There are too many ads or popups on your web page
- The site has malware or suspicious code
- There is keyword stuffing in your content
- The pages of your website have lost backlinks.
Fix: Identifying and Resolving Google Penalties
The reason why you have been penalized by Google is because your website has violated Google’s webmaster guidelines.
To find out, you must verify your website on the Google search console and check for any messages or notifications regarding penalties or issues with your site.
Furthermore, you must analyze your backlinks using Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush tools to identify low-quality spammy links, review your content to identify duplicate, low-quality plagiarized content, and check your on-page and off-page SEO.
Reason 6: Your Site is Not Mobile-Friendly
Search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their search results. Therefore, your website may not appear on Google if you don’t have a mobile-friendly page.
There are various reasons why your website is not mobile-friendly. You may not be using a mobile-friendly theme, or maybe your content is wider than the screen.
Fix: Ensuring Mobile Responsiveness
If your page doesn’t use a mobile-friendly theme, it may not appear on search results. You need to switch to a compatible and responsive theme for mobile phones.
Also, check whether the content is wider than the screen. Sometimes, if your content is wider than the screen, your user may feel frustrated and leave your website. This will negatively impact your website’s ranking.
Additionally, if you are using a popup window, check whether they are responsive. Consider using a popup design that is responsive to Google to enhance mobile users’ experience.
Reason 7: Your Site Loads Slowly
Google tries to give its users the best experience. Therefore, it considers several factors while indexing and ranking a website. One such feature is website speed.
The slow loading time of a page may lead to poor user experience and affect your website’s visibility.
Your page may take a lot of time to load due to JavaScript issues, large images, and a lack of server resources.
Fix: Improving Website Speed
Many tools can help determine your website’s speed. You can use the Google Search Console core web vitals report to check your website’s performance.
The URLs are divided into three categories: fast, moderate, and slow. You can check the details of each of your pages to understand the underlying cause of the issue.
You must also ensure you are caching your pages and using a CDN. This will reduce the number of requests your user’s browser will need to get to your server, reducing the page load time.
Reason 8: Your Website Has No Backlinks
Even if everything is okay with your website, you still need to prove that you deserve to be ranked when a user decides to search Google with relevant keywords.
One of the ways you can prove your worth to Google is by having high-quality backlinks for your website.
Fix: Building High-Quality Backlinks
High-quality backlinks improve search engine ranking.
To earn quality backlinks, you need to create informative and valuable content that naturally attracts backlinks. You can write in-depth articles and other resources that provide real value to your users.
You can also have guest posts from authoritative websites in your niche. However, ensure that the content published in these guest posts is relevant and valuable to your audience.
Also, find broken links on authoritative websites and fix them because broken links negatively impact your search results.
Reason 9: Your Website Has a High Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate may indicate that the information on your website is confusing or irrelevant to your target audience.
A bounce rate above 70% is considered above average and is a sign of concern. Pages with high bounce rates don’t rank on Google’s index.
Therefore, finding the core reason for high bounce rates and how it can be prevented is essential.
Fix: Improving User Experience and Engagement
To fix the bounce rate of your website, check if it is mobile-friendly. You can use Google webmaster tools to determine it.
Also, identify the keywords the particular page of your website ranks for and ensure that you have content that is relevant to the keywords.
Additionally, check if any disruptions are affecting the user experience. For instance, check for popups, which affect user experience and can lead to penalties.
Reason 10: Your Site Has Incorrect Settings
Sometimes, even when all the above-mentioned issues are solved, you may still experience low ranking on search engines.
In these situations, check the overall setting of your website. Look for HTTP errors, cross-browser compatibility, SSL certificate errors, accessibility issues, and DNS errors.
Fix: Reviewing and Correcting Settings
If you have an HTTP error, you must review the specific error message and consult with server logs for more details and further course of action. You can also reach out to your web hosting provider for assistance.
If the problem is cross-browser compatibility, you need to start by testing your browser’s compatibility on different websites. You can use online tools to check its compatibility on different browsers and devices.
Moreover, your SSL certificate is pivotal for website ranking because it encrypts communication between users and the browser. Check that the SSL certificate is valid and hasn’t expired.
After you have checked for every possible reason, check if your website has a DNS error. A DNS error occurs when a domain name can’t be translated into an IP address.
Conclusion: Ensuring Google Visibility for Your Website
Having a website that is not ranking on Google can be frustrating. But you must remember that SEO is a long-term game, and wishing for instant results is not rational.
Various mistakes can discourage search engines from ranking your website in the top search engine results. Check if you are committing any of the above-mentioned mistakes and identify the specific solutions to the problems.
With consistent efforts and patience, you will soon see your website on the top search results on Google.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Why is my website not showing up in Google search?
Your website is not showing up on Google because of various factors:
- It is too new.
- Your website isn’t indexed
- Lacks high-quality content
- has poor SEO
- Your website has been penalized by Google
- It is not mobile-friendly
- Takes a lot of time to load
- It doesn’t have high-quality backlinks
- It has a high bounce rate
- Your website has incorrect settings
How do I fix a website not available on Google?
There are two reasons why your website is not available on Google:
- Your website has been penalized for violating Google webmaster guidelines. To check, you must go to your Google console account for any messages or penalties and address the issues accordingly.
- You may have a no-index HTLM code on your website URL. Ensure you have checked the HTML code of your URL and remove the no-index tag.
How long does it take for Google to index a new website?
The time Google takes to index a website can vary due to the javascript, content quality, and website size.
Generally speaking, it takes 3 to 4 weeks for a website with 500 pages, 2 to 3 months for a website with 500 to 25,000 pages, and 4 to 12 months for websites with more than 25,000 pages.
