“My site has been live for three weeks, and when I search for what I do on Google, it is nowhere to be seen.” If that sounds familiar, the first thing to know is that it covers two very different situations: either Google does not know your site yet, or it knows it but ranks it too low for you to see it.
The two are fixed in completely different ways. Before changing anything, you need to know which situation you are in. This article relies on Google's official documentation and on our own experience: we tracked the indexing of this very site, page by page, after moving it to a new address in September 2026.
How Google finds, stores and shows a page
Google describes how it works in three stages. Crawling: its robots download the text, images and videos from pages they have found. Indexing: Google analyses that content and stores it in its index. Serving: when someone searches, Google returns the results it considers relevant.
Two points from Google change how you should approach the problem. First, it does not guarantee that it will crawl, index or serve a page, even if the page follows all its rules. Second, not every page it processes gets indexed. A site “missing” from Google can therefore be stuck at any of these three stages.
To discover a page, Google mainly relies on links: it follows them from pages it already knows to new ones. It can also use the list of pages you give it, the sitemap. A brand-new site that no other site links to starts at a disadvantage: nobody is showing Google the way.
Step 1: check whether Google knows your site
The “site:” search
Type “site:” followed by your domain name into Google, with no space, for example site:your-business.com. If results point to your site, Google itself says you are in its index.
Do not read too much into it: Google points out that this command does not necessarily return every indexed URL, that the list is not always exhaustive, and that it is not meant for counting indexed pages. If a specific page does not appear, that does not prove it is missing from the index.
Searching for your name
Next, search for the exact name of your business. If your site shows up for your name but not for “plumber Cannes” or “Italian restaurant Antibes”, it is indexed: your issue is not indexing but ranking, which we cover further down.
Step 2: open Search Console, Google's free tool
For a reliable diagnosis, you need Google Search Console, the free tool Google provides to site owners. It is where Google tells you, page by page, what it has done with your site.
- Add your site, ideally as a “Domain property”: it covers every variant of your address, http and https, with or without “www”. It is verified by adding a record to your domain's DNS zone, with your registrar.
- Wait a few days: according to Google, data collection starts as soon as the property is added, but it takes a few days for data to build up.
- Submit your sitemap in the “Sitemaps” section. Google considers it useful for a new site with few links from other sites. It is not essential for a small site (about 500 pages or fewer) whose pages are well linked to each other, but it costs nothing.
- Inspect your important pages with the URL Inspection tool: it tells you whether the page is indexed and, if not, why. If it is not, the “Request indexing” button lets you flag it to Google.
Two limits to know about that button: the number of requests per day is capped, and Google states that a request does not guarantee the page will make it into the index. There is no point insisting either: requesting a recrawl of the same URL several times will not get it crawled any faster. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Reading the indexing report without panicking
Search Console's “Pages” report, under Indexing, sorts your URLs into two groups, indexed and not indexed, with a reason for each. The labels sound alarming, but several of them signal no problem at all. Here is what Google says about the most common ones.
“Discovered – currently not indexed”
Google found the page but has not crawled it yet. According to its documentation, Google typically wanted to crawl it but rescheduled the crawl to avoid overloading the site, which is why the report shows no last crawl date. That is exactly what we saw on our own site in the first few weeks (see below).
“Crawled – currently not indexed”
Google crawled the page but did not index it. It says the page may be indexed in the future, and that there is no need to resubmit it for crawling. If an important page stays in this status for a long time, ask yourself whether it really adds something: Google reminds site owners not to expect every URL on a site to be indexed, as some are duplicates or contain no meaningful information.
“Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag”
The page contains an instruction not to index it, and Google follows it. That is normal for a page you excluded on purpose: on our site, it is the legal notice. It is a real problem if the page was meant to appear (see cause no. 3 below).
“Page with redirect”
The URL redirects to another page: Google does not index it, and that is the expected behaviour. A typical case is the “www” version of a site, or its old address, redirecting to the main address.
“Duplicate” pages and the canonical URL
When several URLs show the same content, Google picks one, the “canonical URL”, which is the one it may show in results. If it picks a different URL from the one you declared, the report says so. Worth a look, without necessarily worrying: what matters is that the version it keeps is the right one.
The “Validate fix” button
It tells Google that you have fixed an issue. Google points out that this does not always make sense, for example for pages blocked on purpose, that validation typically takes up to about two weeks, and that you should not start it again until it has succeeded or failed. For a page excluded deliberately, there is nothing to validate.
The most common causes, and how to fix them
1. The site is simply too new
Google says it can take a week or so before it starts crawling and indexing a new page or site, and that some changes take effect in a few hours while others can take several months. In the first few weeks, not showing up is often nothing unusual.
2. Nobody is showing Google the way
Since Google mostly discovers pages by following links, a site that nothing links to is hard to find. Submit your sitemap in Search Console and make your site known: add its address to your Google Business Profile, your social profiles and your industry's directories, and ask partners who know you (suppliers, clients, local associations) to link to you. Google actually stresses this point: even before the sitemap, it recommends making sure people know about your site.
3. A forgotten “noindex” tag
It is an easy mistake to make: during the build, search engines are asked not to index the site, and then nobody lifts the restriction at launch. On WordPress, it is the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box under Settings > Reading: when ticked, it adds a noindex tag to the pages' code. And Google is clear: when it finds a noindex tag, it drops the page from its results, even if other sites link to it.
To check, Search Console's URL Inspection tool shows the HTML that Google received when crawling the page.
4. The robots.txt file blocks crawling
The robots.txt file tells robots which parts of the site they may crawl. An overly broad rule can stop Google from reaching your pages, and it is one of the reasons for crawl failures that Google lists. Beware of a trap: Google states that robots.txt is not a way to keep a page out of its results (that takes a noindex tag or password protection), and that a noindex tag only works if the page is not blocked by robots.txt, since Google has to be able to read it.
5. Several addresses for the same site
With or without “www”, over http or https, on a .fr and a .com: if your site answers at several addresses, Google sees several copies of the same pages and has to choose which one to show. Pick a main address and permanently redirect the others to it. We explain the method in our article on choosing between .fr and .com.
6. The server responds poorly
Among the reasons crawling can fail, Google lists problems with the server hosting the site and network issues. Hosting that is often unavailable or badly configured can therefore slow indexing down. In the URL Inspection tool, the “Test live URL” button checks whether Google can reach the page right now.
7. A manual action, more rarely
When a Google reviewer finds that pages do not comply with its spam policies, Google can take a “manual action” against the site. According to Google, most manual actions target attempts to manipulate its search index. If your site has never used questionable practices, it is unlikely, but checking is quick: Search Console's “Manual actions” report tells you, and Google also notifies you by message.
Indexed but hard to find: a ranking problem
If your site shows up for its name but not for your customers' searches, it is indexed: it is simply ranked too low. This is no longer a question of technical access, but of relevance and prominence compared with the other sites answering the same search.
For a local business, much of the battle also happens on the map, through Google Business Profiles. Google says their local ranking relies on three factors:
- relevance: how well your profile matches the search;
- distance: how far your business is from the person searching;
- prominence: how well known your business is. Google notes that it takes into account, among other things, the number of websites linking to you, and that more reviews and positive ratings can improve your local ranking.
Google adds that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Its advice: verify your business, keep your information up to date (address, hours, category), respond to reviews, add photos and videos. We would add: link the profile to your website, which is still where you win people over.
On the website side, the levers are well known: one clear page per service, copy that talks about your trade and your area in your customers' words, and links from other sites. That is what we build into every showcase website.
What doesn't help
- Requesting indexing for the same page every day: Google says it will not get crawled any faster.
- Paying to “jump ahead” on Google Maps: Google states that local ranking cannot be requested or bought.
- Worrying about every page that is not indexed: Google says it itself, not every URL on a site is meant to be. What matters are your key pages: home, services, contact.
- Redoing everything after ten days: some changes take several months to have an effect, according to Google. Give your fixes time to be taken into account.
Our experience: this site, week by week
In September 2026, we moved this site from helioz-agency.com to helioz-agency.fr. On 18 September, we declared the change of address in Search Console and submitted the new sitemap. Here is what our own reports show:
- on 18 September, no page of the new domain was indexed yet;
- on 22 September, four days later, 16 pages were;
- on 26 September, our pages started appearing in search results;
- by mid-October, about ten URLs were still “Discovered – currently not indexed”: Google knew them but had not crawled them yet.
Two lessons. The roughly one-week delay Google announces held true. And even on a technically clean site with a sitemap, not every page gets indexed at once: Google moves at its own pace. Ours was a site move, where Google transfers signals from the old address to the new one; for an entirely new site, plan for more time rather than less.
In short: your checklist
- Search for “site:yourdomain.com”, then for the exact name of your business.
- Add your site to Search Console (Domain property) and submit the sitemap.
- Inspect your key pages: are they indexed? If not, why?
- Check that no noindex tag or robots.txt rule is blocking your important pages.
- Make sure a single address is the reference, with the others redirecting to it.
- Get links pointing to your site: Google Business Profile, social profiles, directories, partners.
- Give it time: at least a week, often more, before drawing conclusions.
- If the site is indexed but ranks poorly, work on content, your Business Profile and reviews.
Has your site been live for months and still cannot be found? It may be time to consider a redesign, on the technical side as well as the content. Let's talk.
Sources
- In-depth guide to how Google Search works (Google Search Central)
- Page indexing report (Search Console Help)
- URL Inspection tool (Search Console Help)
- Ask Google to recrawl your URLs (Google Search Central)
- Verify your site ownership (Search Console Help)
- Learn about sitemaps (Google Search Central)
- Block Search indexing with noindex and Introduction to robots.txt (Google Search Central)
- The site: search operator (Google Search Central)
- SEO Starter Guide (Google Search Central)
- Manual actions report (Search Console Help)
- Improve your local ranking on Google (Google Business Profile Help)
- Reading Settings (WordPress documentation)
