Why Isn't My New Website Showing Up on Google? 4 Launch Checks

If your new website isn't showing up on Google, the reason is usually one of two things. Either Google hasn't indexed it yet, which can take a few weeks, or a setting left over from the build is telling Google to stay away. The four checks below are for a site that has just launched or been rebuilt. They show you which reason applies to you and give you one fix for each.

Google says this about new sites: "It can take a few weeks for Google to notice a new site, or any changes in your existing site" (Google Search Central). Sometimes waiting is the right answer, but only once you've ruled out a blocked site.

Before you start, run one test to confirm the site really is missing. Our guide is my page indexed? How to check in 2 minutes walks you through it. If you haven't launched yet, follow our new site launch plan for getting your website on Google instead.

Not sure where the block is? Our free Claude connector audits any page on your site for noindex tags, robots rules and thin content. No account needed. Run the free page audit

Check 1: Is your website builder still hiding the site?

Nearly every website builder has a switch that hides the site while you build it. Designers turn it on and then forget to turn it off at launch. On a new site, rule this out first, because waiting won't fix it.

Platform	Where the setting lives	What you want to see
WordPress	Settings > Reading > "Search engine visibility"	The box "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked
Wix	Site dashboard > Settings > SEO	Search engines are allowed to index the site, and the site is published
Squarespace	Settings > Site availability, then each page's SEO settings	The site is public with no password, and no key page is hidden from search engines
Shopify	Online Store > Preferences > Password protection	Password protection is off. Google can't see a store behind its password page

Menu names change over time. If you can't find the setting, search your builder's help pages for "hide site from search engines". If you use Squarespace or Wix, our guides on a Squarespace site not showing up on Google and Wix SEO not working cover those platforms in more detail.

How to confirm the fix worked: open your homepage, right-click, choose "View page source" and search the code for noindex. If you see <meta name="robots" content="noindex">, the page is still blocked. On WordPress, SEO plugins such as Yoast and Rank Math have their own noindex option on each page, so check the plugin box under the page editor too.

Check 2: Did the launch leave a trap behind?

These problems only happen on brand new sites and rebuilds. They come from the move from "being built" to "live".

The test version got indexed instead. Your designer built the site on a temporary address, such as yourbusiness.wixsite.com, yourstore.myshopify.com or a staging address, and Google found that one first. Once the real domain is live, the temporary address should send visitors to it with a permanent "301 redirect", or be taken down.
robots.txt was copied from the test site. robots.txt is a small file at yourbusiness.com/robots.txt that tells search engines what they may crawl. Open it in your browser. If you see Disallow: / under User-agent: *, the whole site is blocked. Test sites often have that line. The live site should never keep it.
The old site was never redirected. If the new site replaced an old one, each old page address should redirect to its new equivalent. Without that, Google keeps old addresses that now lead to error pages.
The domain points to the wrong place. Type your address with and without www, and with http and https. All four should land on the same live site. If one shows an error or a "parked domain" page, ask whoever manages your domain to fix it.

If you find one of these and can't fix it yourself, send this list to your web designer. Each one is a small job for whoever built the site.

Check 3: What does Search Console say about your homepage?

Google Search Console is Google's free tool for site owners. It's the only place where Google tells you directly what it sees on your site. If you haven't set it up yet, or haven't submitted a sitemap, follow steps 2 and 3 of our launch plan and then come back here.

Paste your homepage address into the search bar at the top of Search Console. This opens the URL Inspection tool, which gives one of two answers:

"URL is on Google". The page is indexed and can appear in results. Google warns that this "doesn't actually guarantee that your page will appear in Search results" (Search Console Help: URL Inspection tool).
"URL is not on Google". Google says this "means that the URL can't appear in Search results" (Search Console Help: URL Inspection tool). Open the details to see the reason, then go to check 4.

If the page isn't on Google and you've fixed any block from checks 1 and 2, press "Request indexing" once. Do it for your homepage and your two or three main service pages. Google is clear that a request "does not guarantee that inclusion in search results will happen instantly or even at all". It also says that asking again for the same address "won't get it crawled any faster" (Google Search Central: Ask Google to recrawl your URLs). If you have a lot of pages, Google recommends a sitemap over requests one by one.

Check 4: Why is my new website not indexed? The statuses in plain English

In Search Console, open "Pages" under Indexing. It lists the pages Google knows about and why some aren't indexed. These are the statuses a new site sees most, with Google's own explanation from its Page indexing report help page.

Status	What Google says it means	Your one action	Wait or act?
Discovered, currently not indexed	Found by Google "but not crawled yet". Google rescheduled the visit	Link to the page from your menu or homepage, and make sure it's in your sitemap	Wait a few weeks after that
Crawled, currently not indexed	Visited but not indexed. Google says this is common and "doesn't necessarily indicate an issue"	Check the page is worth indexing: real details, photos, service area, answers to customer questions	Act on thin pages, wait on solid ones
Excluded by "noindex" tag	Google found a noindex instruction on the page	Remove it (check 1)	Act now
Blocked by robots.txt	Your robots.txt file forbids the page	Remove the blocking line (check 2)	Act now
Page with redirect	The address redirects elsewhere, so it won't be indexed itself	Make sure the destination page is indexed	Nothing, if the destination is fine
Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user	Google thinks another address is the better version	Merge pages that are almost identical, or make each one clearly different	Act

Most of these come straight from Google. What follows is what we observe on small business sites. It's an observation, not a Google rule: "Crawled, currently not indexed" often lands on thin pages. Think of a "Services" page with one line per service, five town pages that only swap the town name, or a 150-word blog post. If the page is solid, leave it alone and give Google time.

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Help Google find a site nobody links to yet. A new site usually has no other websites pointing to it, so Google has few ways in. Google says links from other sites help it find you (Google Search Central). The clean way to get them is to earn mentions: your Google Business Profile, your trade association's member list, your local chamber of commerce, suppliers who list their installers. Never buy links. Google lists that as link spam in its spam policies.

Indexed but still not showing up? That's a different problem

If URL Inspection says "URL is on Google", your site isn't missing any more. Either it ranks low, or other businesses with similar names show up above you. That's the next stage, and two of our guides cover it:

Why can't I find my website on Google? deals with searches for your own business name.
Why isn't my site ranking? Five checks in the right order covers searches for what you sell, such as "electrician in Bristol".

What not to do on a new site: don't rebuild the whole site, don't pay a service to "submit you to Google" (Search Console is free), don't buy links, and don't change your domain in a panic. Each of these can set a new site back.

When to get help: call a developer if Search Console reports a block you can't find in any setting. Do the same if both the test address and the live address are indexed and you don't know how to redirect one to the other.

FAQ

How long does it take for a new website to show up on Google? Google says it can take a few weeks to notice a new site (Google Search Central). A sitemap and links from your Google Business Profile help Google find it. Nothing guarantees a date.

I launched my site a week ago. Should I keep requesting indexing? No. Request it once per page. Google says asking again for the same address won't get it crawled any faster (Google Search Central).

My designer's test address shows on Google but my real domain doesn't. What now? Ask your designer to set a permanent 301 redirect from every test page to the matching page on your real domain. Then inspect your real homepage in Search Console and request indexing.

Is my new website penalized? Very unlikely. Search Console has a Manual actions report that shows whether Google has taken action against your site. Google says that if your site has none, you'll see "a green check mark and an appropriate message" (Search Console Help: Manual Actions report). If that's what you see, the cause is almost certainly one of the four checks above.

What to do today

Open your website builder and make sure the "hide from search engines" setting is off. Then search your homepage source code for noindex.
Open yourbusiness.com/robots.txt and make sure it doesn't say Disallow: /.
Type your address with and without www and check that every version lands on the live site.
Inspect your homepage in Search Console and read its status against the table in check 4.
Run the free page audit with our Claude connector on your homepage to see what to fix first.