WordPress Site Not Showing on Google? 9 Causes and How to Get Indexed

You launched your website weeks ago, searched for it on Google and found nothing. This is one of the most frustrating moments for new site owners, and in a surprising number of cases the cause is a single checkbox that was ticked during building and never unticked.

Here are the nine most common reasons a WordPress site is not showing on Google, how to check each one, and the exact Search Console steps to get your pages indexed.

First: indexed vs ranking

Two different problems look the same from the outside:

• Not indexed: Google does not have your page in its database at all, so it can never appear.
• Indexed but not ranking: Google knows the page but shows others above it for your search terms.

Search for site:yourdomain.com on Google. If nothing appears, you have an indexing problem; work through the causes below. If pages appear but not for your keywords, it is a ranking problem; jump to the end of this guide.

Cause 1: "Discourage search engines" is still ticked

WordPress has a setting that asks search engines not to index the site. It is useful while building and disastrous after launch.

1. Go to Settings > Reading.
2. Find Search engine visibility.
3. Make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked, then save.

The free SWS Site Fixer plugin (download below) checks this automatically and shows a red warning on its Site Health tab if your site is hidden from Google.

Cause 2: The site is not in Google Search Console

Search Console is Google's free tool for site owners. It tells you exactly what Google sees.

1. Go to Google Search Console and add a property.
2. Choose Domain (verify with a DNS record, covers all subdomains) or URL prefix (verify with an HTML tag, a file or Google Analytics).
3. For the HTML tag method, paste the verification meta tag into your site's header. In SWS Site Fixer use Header & Footer > Header code; most SEO plugins also have a field for it.
4. Click Verify.

Cause 3: No sitemap submitted

A sitemap lists your pages so Google can find them. WordPress creates one automatically at /wp-sitemap.xml, and SEO plugins usually create their own at /sitemap_index.xml.

1. Open your sitemap URL in a browser to confirm it loads.
2. In Search Console, go to Sitemaps, enter the sitemap address and click Submit.

A status of "Couldn't fetch" right after submitting is common on new properties and often changes to "Success" within a day or two.

Cause 4: The site is brand new

New domains with few links are crawled slowly. Give it a few days to a few weeks after submitting the sitemap, and speed things up by using URL Inspection > Request indexing for your homepage and most important pages.

Cause 5: Pages are set to noindex

SEO plugins let you mark pages, categories or whole post types as noindex. Check your SEO plugin's settings, and use URL Inspection on a missing page: if it says "Excluded by 'noindex' tag", remove that setting.

Cause 6: robots.txt blocks Google

Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt. A line like Disallow: / under User-agent: * blocks your entire site. Remove it, or adjust it in your SEO plugin.

Cause 7: A maintenance or coming-soon page is still on

If visitors (and Google) see a "coming soon" page, nothing behind it can be indexed. Log out or open a private window to check, and switch maintenance mode off. See our maintenance mode guide for doing it correctly.

Cause 8: Thin or duplicate content

Google may crawl a page and decline to index it ("Crawled, currently not indexed") if it adds little value: a few lines of text, copied manufacturer descriptions, or many near-identical pages. Make each page genuinely useful, with original text that answers a real question, and link important pages from your menu and other posts.

Cause 9: Technical errors and redirects

• Server errors (5xx) or a site that is frequently down stop Google crawling.
• Redirect loops after installing SSL leave Google unable to reach pages. See too many redirects and "Not secure" fixes.
• Broken internal links after changing URLs send Google to 404 pages. See how to fix 404s with redirects.

Use the Pages report to find the exact reason

In Search Console, open Indexing > Pages. It lists every reason pages are not indexed, such as "Excluded by noindex tag", "Blocked by robots.txt", "Not found (404)" or "Discovered, currently not indexed". Fix the cause, then click Validate fix.

Indexed but not ranking? Next steps

• Target specific searches with one clear topic per page.
• Write unique titles and meta descriptions for every page.
• Answer the searcher's question better than the pages currently ranking.
• Make the site fast and mobile-friendly with our speed guide.
• Earn links by publishing genuinely useful guides, tools or templates.

Download the free plugin below to check your site's visibility setting and add your Search Console code in one place. Running a Shopify store instead? See the Shopify SEO guide.