Website Not Showing Up on Google: 8 Causes + Self-Test

The website is online, it looks good, and still nobody finds it. Before you spend money: check these eight causes. You can manage the self-tests without technical know-how, usually in half an hour. Afterwards you know whether the problem is technical (quick to fix) or about content (slower, but with the biggest effect).

The 8 causes at a glance

Diagnosis order: do these first

Not all eight points are equally likely or equally quick to check. Go through them in this order:

1. Cause 1 first. If Google does not know your site, every other test is pointless. The check takes ten seconds.
2. Then cause 6. Look at the browser tabs. Also seconds, and a frequent, cheap-to-fix hit.
3. Then causes 4 and 5. Load time and mobile, five minutes each, with clear measurements.
4. Then causes 2 and 3. Here you need time to think: what do your customers actually search for?
5. Finally 7 and 8. These are assessments, not quick tests. They help you decide between repairing and rebuilding.

Also set up Google Search Console if you have not already. The free tool shows which pages Google knows, which search terms you appear for and where there are technical errors. Several tests below become more precise with it.

1. Google does not even know your site exists

What is behind it: Google keeps a directory of all the pages it knows, the index. If your website is not in it, it cannot appear in any search, however good it is. This happens with brand-new websites, after a relaunch with changed addresses, or because of a forgotten setting: during development a site is often deliberately hidden from Google, and after launch nobody lifts that again. More common than you would think.

Self-test, step by step:

1. Type site:your-domain.ch into Google, no space after the colon.
2. Do results appear? Does the number roughly match your number of subpages?
3. No results: your site is not in the index. Far fewer than expected: some pages are missing.
4. Google Search Console is more precise under “Pages”: for every address it says whether it is indexed and, if not, why.

The fix: Usually a setting that needs switching and a sitemap submitted to Google. One to two hours for a developer. In many website builders you find the setting yourself, usually under “Visibility” or “Search engines”. After that it takes days to a few weeks until Google picks the site up.

2. You are found, but only by your company name

What is behind it: Anyone who knows your company name is already almost a customer. The business lies with people looking for a service who do not know you yet. Many websites are unintentionally optimised for the name, because it is everywhere, and nowhere for the service.

Self-test:

1. Write down five search queries the way a customer would type them: “plumber emergency Winterthur”, “trustee for associations”, “physiotherapy Zug Saturday”.
2. Search each one in a private browser window, otherwise Google favours your own site because you visit it often.
3. Scroll to page 3. Are you there? In which position?
4. Search Console shows under “Performance” which search terms you appear for today. Almost only your name? That confirms the diagnosis.

The fix: A dedicated page for every important service, in the words customers use, ideally with a location. You supply the knowledge of what customers ask; a developer takes care of structure and technology. For regional businesses, Local SEO in Switzerland explains what matters most.

3. Your site does not answer any search questions

What is behind it: Google shows pages that answer questions. If your website only says who you are and since when, but never what you solve and for whom, there is nothing to find. This is the most common cause of all, and not a technical one. No tool fixes it, only content.

Self-test:

1. Open every subpage and answer in one sentence: which customer question does this page answer?
2. If nothing comes to mind, or three pages give the same answer, you have found the cause.
3. Count your service pages. A business with eight services and a single “Services” page cannot rank for eight search terms.
4. Read your home page out loud. Does it use the words your customers use on the phone?

The fix: Write content that answers concrete questions: roughly what it costs, how it works, who it suits. You know the content best; structuring it for Google is a job for someone who does it regularly. The most demanding of the eight points, but the one with the biggest effect. The basics are in SEO basics without snake oil.

4. The site is too slow

What is behind it: Load time is a ranking factor and a reason people bounce. A site that takes five seconds on a phone loses visitors before they see anything, and Google remembers that. Typical brakes: huge images, too many add-on modules, slow hosting.

Self-test:

1. Open pagespeed.web.dev and enter your address.
2. Look at the “Mobile” tab first, not “Desktop”. Google rates the mobile version.
3. The score under “Performance” is the figure that counts. Above 90 is good, 50 to 90 needs work, below 50 is a real problem.
4. Scroll to the recommendations. If “Properly size images” is at the top, you know where it is stuck.
5. Test a service page too, not just the home page.

The fix: Shrinking images you can often do yourself. Everything else, cleaning up code, changing hosting, removing modules, is developer work. Why load time costs customers beyond Google: Load time and customers.

5. Unusable on a phone

What is behind it: Google rates the mobile version of your site, not the desktop version. More than half of all searches come from a phone. A site that looks good on a screen and falls apart on a phone is rated as it is on the phone.

Self-test:

1. Open your website on your phone, not in a preview on the computer.
2. Do you have to zoom to read text?
3. Does anything overlap? Does an image or table stick out sideways so you have to scroll horizontally?
4. Can you hit buttons and links with your thumb, or are they too close?
5. Search Console reports concrete mobile usability errors if Google finds any.

The fix: On modern sites these are usually detail corrections, a few hours of developer work. On older sites without a mobile version it is a question of rebuilding, discussed before money goes into patchwork.

6. Every page is called the same

What is behind it: Every page has a title that appears in the browser tab and as the blue headline in the search result. It is the first thing Google reads, and it helps decide what the page is shown for. If every page says “Home” or the company name, you are giving away the most important clue.

Self-test:

1. Open five subpages, each in its own tab.
2. Read what the tab says. Hover over it if the text is cut off.
3. The same everywhere, or just “Home” and “Services”? Then this is the cause.
4. Good titles look like “Emergency plumber Winterthur, 24 hours | Example Ltd”. Service, place, company.

The fix: In most builders and systems you set the titles yourself, one field per page, a few minutes each. A developer needs about one to three hours for ten pages, descriptions included. SEO does not get cheaper.

7. Technical brakes from the website builder

What is behind it: Website builder pages carry invisible ballast: code for features you never use, and for technical fine-tuning the provider sets the limits. Not an automatic knockout, many builder sites rank decently. But a starting disadvantage once the competition gets serious.

Self-test:

1. Checked points 4 and 5, shrunk images, removed modules, and the score still stays below 50? Then you have hit the limit.
2. Try to change the page title (point 6) or the address of a subpage. Impossible, or only in a pricier plan? That is the problem.

The fix: Either live with the builder and get everything out of the content (points 2, 3, 6), or move to a lean website of your own. Which route suits whom is assessed honestly in our website builder comparison. The move itself is described in Move off a website builder.

8. The competition simply does it better

What is behind it: Sometimes your own site is fine, the competitors just answer the search questions in more detail, faster, more clearly. Google then has no reason to prefer you. No trick helps, only better content and patience.

Self-test:

1. Search for your most important term and open the first three results.
2. Compare: how much text, how many subpages, prices mentioned, answers to common questions, photos of real projects?
3. Run the three sites and your own through pagespeed.web.dev.
4. Honestly: as a customer, would you choose your site?

The fix: Not a project with an end date but ongoing work: add pages, answer questions, keep the technology clean. In return, positions earned this way are stable.

How long until you see results?

That depends on which cause you have fixed:

• Technical causes (1, 4, 5, 6): Google notices changes within days to a few weeks. A site that was not in the index at all often appears within two weeks. The biggest felt progress.
• Content causes (2, 3, 8): First movement after 4 to 8 weeks, stable results after 3 to 6 months. Faster for less competitive, regional terms, longer for competitive ones.
• Leaving the website builder (7): After a move, Google needs a few weeks to classify the new site. With clean redirects nothing is lost.

Anyone promising faster should make you suspicious. The honest month-by-month timeline is in How long does SEO take?, and how to recognise a serious provider in Spot a trustworthy SEO agency.

What does it realistically cost?

We charge CHF 180 per hour and quote a fixed price after a first assessment. So you have an idea beforehand, here are typical efforts as hour ranges with the assumptions behind them, no packages:

The technical points 1, 4, 5 and 6 together therefore come to 7 to 19 hours for a typical SME website, CHF 1260 to 3420, one-off. The content points are ongoing work and depend on how many services you offer. Hosting is optional with us, fixed from CHF 300 per year. If a rebuild is cheaper than the repair, we say so; what a new website costs is on our websites page.

What now?

Two or three of these causes you can tackle yourself, above all points 1 and 6. Do those first. For the rest: we analyse your website and tell you, in plain language, what is good, what is missing and what it would be worth, from Rotkreuz in the Canton of Zug, for SMEs across Switzerland. By the way: you probably found this article through Google just now, and that is exactly what we do for you. The price calculator gives you the ballpark in two minutes.

Frequently asked questions