There is an important difference between ranking badly and not appearing at all. If you search your exact business name and your site does not come up, you do not have an SEO problem — you have a technical one, and it is usually both simple and fixable.

First, Confirm the Problem

Search Google for:

site:yourdomain.co.uk

This lists every page Google has indexed. Three possible outcomes:

  • Nothing at all. Your site is not indexed. Work through the list below.
  • Some pages, not others. Partial indexing — usually a sitemap or internal linking problem.
  • Everything is there. You are indexed and the problem is ranking, which is a different article — start with SEO basics.

The Nine Causes

1. A noindex tag left in place

Far and away the most common cause. Sites are built with indexing switched off so an unfinished version does not appear, and someone forgets to turn it back on at launch.

Check: view your page source and search for noindex. In WordPress, look at Settings → Reading for "Discourage search engines from indexing this site".

Fix time: minutes to remove, days to weeks for Google to revisit.

2. robots.txt blocking everything

Visit yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt. If you see Disallow: / under User-agent: *, you are telling every search engine to stay out.

Fix time: minutes, then wait for a recrawl.

3. The site is genuinely new

Google has to find you before it can list you. A brand new domain with no links pointing at it can take weeks to be discovered.

Fix: set up Google Search Console, submit your sitemap, and use URL Inspection to request indexing on your key pages. This usually cuts weeks to days.

4. No sitemap, or one nobody submitted

A sitemap lists your pages for search engines. Without one, Google relies on following links, which is slower and less complete.

Fix: generate a sitemap, make sure it is referenced in robots.txt, and submit it in Search Console.

5. Pages with no internal links to them

A page nobody links to is an orphan. If it is not in your navigation, not in your sitemap and not linked from any other page, Google may never find it.

Fix: link to it from somewhere sensible. Navigation, a hub page, or a related-content section.

6. Duplicate content or a missing canonical

If your site is reachable at both www and non-www, and both http and https, Google sees up to four copies and may pick one you did not intend — or dilute all of them.

Fix: 301 redirect everything to one canonical version and set a canonical tag on every page.

7. Content that is too thin to bother with

A three-page site with fifty words per page technically qualifies for indexing but gives Google very little reason to show it. This is more common than people expect on template builds.

Fix: real content. A proper page per service, a genuine About page, and location pages if you serve an area.

8. A manual action

Rare, but it happens — usually from bought links or spam content, sometimes inherited with a second-hand domain.

Check: Search Console → Security & Manual Actions. If there is nothing listed, this is not your problem.

9. The site is broken or too slow to crawl

Server errors, timeouts and pages taking many seconds to respond all reduce how much Google crawls. If your host is struggling, indexing suffers before rankings do.

Check: Search Console → Settings → Crawl stats.

Set up Search Console first

If you take one thing from this article: install Google Search Console. It is free, takes fifteen minutes, and it tells you directly which of these nine problems you have instead of leaving you to guess. Most small business sites have never had it set up.

How Long Until It Works?

  • Removing a noindex or robots.txt block: a few days to two weeks after requesting indexing.
  • Submitting a sitemap for a new site: usually days.
  • Fixing thin content: weeks to be indexed, months to rank meaningfully.
  • Recovering from a manual action: weeks after a successful reconsideration request.

Indexed, But Still Nothing Coming In

If site: shows your pages and you still get no enquiries, the problem has moved from indexing to ranking and conversion. That is covered in why your business isn't getting enquiries and the local SEO checklist.

Not sure which applies? A free website audit will tell you exactly where the problem is.

Common Questions

How do I check if my website is on Google?

Search for site:yourdomain.co.uk in Google. If nothing comes back, none of your pages are indexed. If some pages appear but not others, indexing is partial and worth investigating in Search Console.

How long does Google take to index a new website?

Usually a few days to four weeks. Submitting your sitemap in Search Console and using the URL Inspection tool to request indexing speeds it up considerably.

Why does my site show for my business name but nothing else?

That is normal for a new or thin site. Your name has no competition; service terms do. Ranking for those needs proper service and location pages plus local SEO, which typically takes three to six months.

Can I get penalised without knowing?

Manual actions appear in Google Search Console under Security & Manual Actions, so you would be told. Algorithmic suppression is not notified, but it is far less common than the technical causes on this list.