First, which problem do you have?
Type site:yourdomain.co.uk into Google. If nothing comes back, you have an indexing problem: Google does not have the pages. If your pages come back but you cannot find yourself for any real search, you have a ranking problem. The fixes are completely different, and most advice online mixes them up.
Then set up Google Search Console if it is not already. Verifying takes ten minutes with a DNS record or an HTML file, and it is the only source of truth for both problems. Searching for yourself is not reliable: Google personalises results, and you will see yourself where nobody else does.
Problem one: Google has not got the pages
Open Search Console, then Pages (under Indexing). It lists every reason Google has for not indexing a URL. These are the ones that account for almost every case, and how to fix each.
| Search Console says | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Discovered – currently not indexed | Google knows the URL exists and has not bothered to fetch it yet. Common on new sites and huge ones. | Link to the page from pages that are indexed. Submit a sitemap. Wait; on a new domain this can take weeks. |
| Crawled – currently not indexed | Google fetched it and decided it was not worth keeping. Usually thin, duplicate or near-empty pages. | Make the page genuinely different and useful, or remove it and redirect. Do not request indexing again until it has changed. |
| Blocked by robots.txt | Your own robots file told Google to stay out. | Open yourdomain/robots.txt. Remove any Disallow line covering pages or the folders your pages need (scripts, styles). |
| Excluded by “noindex” tag | The page carries a tag saying do not index. Left over from staging on many WordPress sites. | Settings → Reading → untick “Discourage search engines” in WordPress; check SEO plugins per page. |
| Page with redirect | The URL forwards elsewhere. Normal; the destination is what gets indexed. | Nothing, unless the destination is wrong. |
| Not found (404) | The page is gone and something still links to it. | Restore it or redirect it to the closest live page. |
| Duplicate, Google chose different canonical | Two URLs with the same content; Google picked the other. | Pick one URL per page and point the canonical tag at it. Fix http/https and www/non-www so there is one version. |
Source: Google Search Console Page indexing report statuses and Google Search Central documentation; the examples are from sites Cybrial has worked on.
Two more that the report will not name. If the site is brand new, Google may simply not have found it: submit the sitemap and get one real link from anywhere indexed, a supplier or your Google Business Profile. And if the site is built as a single JavaScript app with no server-rendered content, Google may see an empty page; test by viewing the source and checking whether the text is there.
Problem two: indexed, but ranking for nothing
Open Search Console, then Performance. Set the range to the last three months. If impressions are near zero, Google has the pages and is not showing them to anyone. If impressions are healthy and clicks are near zero, people see you and do not choose you. Different again.
- The pages target nothing anyone types. A homepage titled “Home” and a services page titled “Services” compete for nothing. Each page needs a subject and a place in its title: “Block Paving Driveways, Bolton”. The DIY SEO guide covers this.
- The site is only found for its own name. Look at the Queries tab. A Rochdale retailer we built gets roughly nine in ten clicks from people typing its name, read from its Search Console. That is normal for a new local site, and it means the non-brand pages have not been written yet.
- The site is slow. Check Experience → Core Web Vitals. If the mobile report is red, uncompressed images and plugin bloat are the usual cause. The paving site we built loads in 0.68 seconds; many small WordPress sites take five or more on a phone.
- No reputation yet. A domain with no links from other sites ranks slowly for anything competitive. The Manchester agencies that hold page one have hundreds to over a thousand referring domains each. A new site has none, and needs the free ones first: suppliers, trade bodies, clients, local press.
- You are looking at the wrong searches. A three-month-old site will not rank for “web design manchester”. It can rank for “web design for dentists in Stockport”. Check the Queries tab for what you already appear for on page two and improve those pages first.
Problem three: seen, but not chosen
If impressions are fine and clicks are not, the page title and description are not earning the click. On the live “web design manchester” result, the one studio that puts a starting price in its title holds a page-one position on a homepage against agencies with far more links. Titles that say what, where and how much beat titles that say the company name.
Also check the position column. An average position of 15 with high impressions means you are on page two, seen by the few who scroll, clicked by almost nobody. Those are the cheapest wins on the site: a better title, a fuller answer and one internal link often moves position 15 to position 8.
The ten-minute check, in order
- Search site:yourdomain. Nothing? Indexing problem. Pages appear? Ranking problem.
- Open yourdomain/robots.txt. Any Disallow line that covers real pages or the scripts folder is a fault.
- In Search Console → Pages, read the “not indexed” reasons and match them to the table above.
- In Search Console → Performance, three months: impressions, clicks, average position, and the Queries tab. Note how many queries are your own name.
- In Search Console → Experience → Core Web Vitals, check the mobile report.
- Open your homepage and two service pages. Read the browser tab title. Does it say what, where and for whom?
- Search your trade plus your town. Who is in the map pack? Are you? If not, that is the Google Business Profile guide, and it is the fastest fix on this list.
Do those seven and you will know which of the nine causes you have. Most small sites have two or three at once, and they are almost always the free ones to fix.
