My site doesn't appear on Google: what to check

You search for your business on Google and your site isn't there. It happens more often than it seems, and almost always the cause is one of seven. Almost all of them you test yourself in ten minutes, without knowing a line of code.

Let's start with the control that immediately tells you where you are, because without that you just have to try.

First of all, search the right way

Searching for your business name is not a reliable test. If there are businesses with similar names, or if your name contains a common word, you won't understand anything from the result.

Serious control is another. Type this in the Google bar, with no space after the colon:

site:yourdomain.it

Google responds to you with the list of pages it has in its archive. It's the only answer that really matters, because it doesn't depend on how you're positioned: it just depends on whether your pages are there or not.

The site is too new

If it has been online for less than two or three weeks, there is most likely no fault: you just have to wait. Google has to discover it, crawl it, and decide to keep it. On a newly registered domain, which no other site links to yet, that tour can take a month.

It can be accelerated, and that's the point below. But if the site is from yesterday, breathe.

You never told Google that the site exists

Google finds new sites in two ways: by following links from other sites, or because you tell it to. If no one links to you yet, you're left with the second one.

It is done with Search Console, which is free. You verify domain ownership, upload the sitemap address (usually yourdomain.it/sitemap.xml) and then, for the home page, use the «URL control» field at the top and ask for indexing. It's not a magic button and it doesn't guarantee anything, but it's the difference between asking and hoping.

Search Console is also the place where Google writes to you, in black and white, because a certain page is not indexed. If the site is yours and you haven't connected it yet, this is the thing to do today.

Something is telling Google to stay away

This is the most frequent cause on recently created sites, and it is also the most banal. The site works, but contains a statement asking engines not to index it. It has usually remained lit since it was under construction.

On WordPress you can control it in a minute: Settings, then Reading, and look at the «Dissuade search engines from indexing this site» box. If it is checked, remove the check. We found some sites that have been online for eight months with that box active.

Outside of WordPress there are two other places to look. The file yourdomain.it/robots.txt: if it is inside Disallow: / you are blocking everything. And the page source, where a tag noindex it does the same job in a more silent way: open the site, right click, "View page source" and search for the word noindex.

When you find one and remove it, go back to Search Console and request indexing. Google doesn't go over itself right away.

Browser says "not secure"

If the word "Not secure" appears next to the address, the site still runs on http instead of https. It's not an aesthetic issue: Chrome warns anyone who enters, and Google has preferred the secure version for years.

An SSL certificate is required. Almost all hosting includes a free one and it can be activated from the panel in just a few clicks. Once that is done, the redirection from http to https must be added, otherwise there will be two versions of the same site around. And two versions is the next problem.

There are multiple copies of the same site

Your site can be reachable at four different addresses without you knowing it: with and without www, in http and in https. For you they are the same page. For Google there can be four identical pages, and when it finds identical pages it chooses one and puts the others aside. If he chooses the one you don't promote, you have the feeling that the site won't appear.

Try all four by hand, writing them in the address bar. They must all end up in the same place, with a permanent redirect. If two open without redirecting, that needs fixing.

The canonical tag does the same job from inside the page, and on a well-made site it is already there.

It appears, but not because of the words you say

This is the most common case of all, and it's what people describe as "my site isn't showing up" when it actually looks great.

The test is simple: search for the exact name of your business. If the site goes out, it is indexed and you don't have any technical problems. What you have is a site that appears only for your name. And those who already know you are looking for your name.

The difference changes everything, because the customer you serve doesn't know you exist. Search for "pizzeria that delivers to Pompeii", or "warehouse management". Don't look for «Da Ciro». Appearing for your name is the minimum, not an achievement.

Here the work is no longer maintenance, it's content: a page for everything you actually sell, written with the words customers use to search for it, and the curated Google listing. In the restaurant the reviews weigh more than they seem, and we have written about it separately in how Google reviews move local rankings. If the problem is that no one finds you for what you do, that's the starting point.

The site opens to you and not to Google

One last case, rarer but unpleasant. The site looks great in your browser and Google sees a blank page. It happens when content is constructed by JavaScript after loading, and it happens more often with some visual constructors.

The test is the same as before: right click, «View page source». If you don't find the texts you read on the screen in that source, Google might not find them either. In Search Console the "URL Checker" tool shows you the page as he saw it, and it's the definitive confirmation.

Here the DIY stops. It can be solved by changing the way the site is generated, and whoever built it must do this.

What if the problem is ChatGPT and not Google

It's worth adding, because it's becoming the real question. More and more people search in ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity, and the rules are not the same there. A site can be first on Google and never be cited by an assistant.

We wrote about it in how to be found on ChatGPT, and if that's what interests you we treat it as a separate service, theindexing on AI engines.

When it makes sense to call someone

If you have done the checks above and site: still returns nothing, stop trying random settings. The risk is spending weeks changing things while the site remains invisible.

We always start from the same three points: what Search Console says, what Google sees about the page, and how the site is built. In most cases the cause turns up within the first half hour, and often it's a box checked by someone who never checked it again.

If you are between Pompeii, Castellammare, Scafati, Torre Annunziata and the Sorrento Peninsula we can also meet in person: we'll come. Write to us on WhatsApp with the site address, so we can get there already prepared.