You have put time, money and a whole load of effort into your new website and yet when you search for it, nothing comes up. You find a directory listing, your old site, or worse, a competitor. It is one of the most common problems I get asked about, and in almost every case there is a straightforward explanation. Often it is one of the gaps between the website builder and the search engines, that nobody tells you about.

Here is how to work out which situation you are in, and what to do about each one.

First, check whether Google knows your site exists

There is an important difference between Google not ranking your site on the first page of results and Google not knowing about it at all. The first check is to find out which one.

Go to Google and search for site:yourdomain.co.uk, swapping in your own address. This asks Google to show you every page of yours it has stored.

If you see your pages listed, your site is indexed. Google knows about you, and the issue is ranking, which we’ll get to. If you see nothing, or only your homepage, Google either has not found your site yet or has been told not to look. That is the first thing to fix, and it is usually quick.

The WordPress setting that catches so many people out

If your site runs on WordPress, check this before anything else. In the dashboard, go to Settings, then Reading, and look for a tickbox that says “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.”

Web designers tick this while a site is being built, for good reason, so a half-finished site does not appear in search results. But it can be overlooked after launch, so while the site looks ok to you, the search engines are ignoring it.

Other platforms have their own version of this. Squarespace, Wix and Shopify all have settings or password protection that can keep search engines out, so it is worth taking a look through your settings, whatever you built the site on.

Google needs a way to find you

Google finds new pages by following links from pages it already knows about. A brand new site with nothing pointing to it is a bit like a shop on a street with no road leading to it. It might eventually get found, but you can speed things up considerably.

The single most useful thing you can do is set up Google Search Console. It is free, it is Google’s own tool, and it lets you hand Google a sitemap, a list of every page on your site. Most websites generate a sitemap automatically, and on WordPress an SEO plugin such as Rank Math or Yoast will do it for you. Once Search Console is set up, you submit the sitemap once and Google takes it from there.

Search Console can tell you all sorts of useful things about how your website is performing. It will show you whether pages are indexed, whether anything is blocking them, and later on, which searches your site is appearing for.

A few links from elsewhere help too. Your Google Business Profile, your social media profiles, local directories, a supplier or trade association listing. Other sites linking to yours help you to get found and also increase your credibility as a trustworthy business.

Bing has its own version – Bing Webmaster Tools, it is easy to setup and allows you to see more insights on your website performance and user experience.

If you replaced an old website

If your new site replaced an old one, and especially if the web addresses of your pages changed, Google can lose track of your business during the move. It goes looking for the pages it knew and unless someone has set up redirects pointing from the old addresses to the new ones, the reputation your old site had built up does not carry across.

Your site is indexed but nowhere to be seen

If the site: search showed your pages, Google knows about you. The problem is that you are on page four or five, where very few people will find you. This is normal for a new site, and it comes down to two things: time and content.

A new domain has no track record, and Google is cautious with sites it has only just located. It is entirely normal for a new website to spend its first few months barely visible while Google works out what it is about and whether anyone finds it useful. Anyone promising to get a brand new site to the top of Google immediately is telling you what you want to hear, not what is true.

Content is the part you can influence while you wait. Google matches user searches to the most relevant pages, so your pages need to say clearly what you do, and where you do it. A homepage heading that says “Welcome to Smith and Sons” gives Google nothing to work with. A page that says “plumbing and boiler repairs in Droitwich” gives it everything it needs. Have a page for each main service, name your area, and write the way your customers speak rather than the way your industry speaks. If your customers search for a boiler service, a page about “domestic heating solutions” will struggle.

AI search

Does any of this affect ChatGPT and AI search results?

Increasingly people find businesses by asking an AI tool rather than searching Google, and the answer here is reassuring. The same foundations apply. AI tools recommend businesses they can find and understand, with clear pages, consistent listings and real reviews from your customers.

Fix your visibility on Google and you are doing most of the work of showing up in AI answers at the same time. There is no separate trick to it, whatever some agencies suggest.