Before your website can rank for anything, Google has to find it, read it, and add it to its index. If a page isn't indexed, it simply doesn't exist as far as search is concerned. No amount of great content or clever keywords will help until that's fixed.
The good news: checking your indexing takes a few minutes, and most problems have straightforward fixes. Here's the same process I use when I take on a new client website.
Step 1: Do a quick site: search
Go to Google and type site:yourdomain.com (with your real domain). Google will list pages it has indexed from your site. It's not a perfect count, but it answers the big question fast: is Google seeing your site at all, and are your most important pages in there?
If you see nothing, or your homepage and main service pages are missing, keep reading. Something is getting in the way.
Step 2: Check Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool from Google, and it's the most reliable way to see what's going on. Once your site is verified, two areas matter most:
- Pages report: shows which pages are indexed and which aren't, along with the reason Google gives for each one.
- URL Inspection: paste in any page address to see whether it's indexed, when Google last crawled it, and whether it can be indexed right now. You can also request indexing after you fix a problem.
If you haven't set up Search Console yet, do it. It's the single most useful free SEO tool a small business can have.
Common reasons pages don't get indexed
- A "discourage search engines" setting is on. WordPress has a checkbox under Settings, then Reading, that asks search engines not to index the site. It's often switched on while a site is being built and forgotten at launch.
- A noindex tag. SEO plugins can mark individual pages as noindex. That's useful for thank-you pages, but not for your services page.
- Blocked in robots.txt. A single wrong line in this file can stop Google from crawling whole sections of your site.
- No sitemap, or an outdated one. A sitemap lists your pages for Google. Submit it in Search Console so new pages get discovered faster.
- Thin or duplicate content. Google may choose not to index pages that look nearly identical to other pages, or that have very little useful content.
- No internal links. If nothing on your site links to a page, Google may never find it.
Quick win: check Settings, then Reading in WordPress and make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unchecked. I've seen this one setting hide entire websites.
What to do next
Fix the issue Search Console reports, then use URL Inspection to request indexing for your most important pages. Indexing isn't instant. It can take days or a few weeks, but you should see pages start moving into the indexed list.
If the reports don't make sense, or pages still won't index after you've fixed the obvious issues, that's exactly the kind of thing I help with. I'll check what's indexed, find what's holding the rest back, and fix it.
