Your website is finally up and running. Congratulations! Now, you’re probably wondering why it isn't showing up on Google’s search engine? There are a few possible reasons why the site is not ranking yet.
Is your website newly created?
With platforms such as Wix, Wordpress, and Webflow, creating websites is not as challenging as it was before. The entry barrier is low. This means that your newly created website is now competing with billions of websites out there. It’s no wonder why isn’t showing up yet.
The website needs to earn the trust and confidence of other websites through high-quality content. The search engine needs to understand what your site is about. It must also rank on specific keywords.
Is there a specific timeline as to when your website could show up? The answer is NO, there is none. Your website could show up in just a matter of weeks, months or even a year. Google’s ranking parameters are constantly evolving over time.
According to Ahrefs, it could take at least 3-6 months for SEO results. SEO takes time and a new website needs to earn backlinks from other websites to build its credibility. If other websites link back to your site, it helps build your authority, relevance and credibility.
If you want to speed up the process of Google finding your website, you can create a sitemap. Submit it to Google Search Console. This is a way of telling Google about your site’s existence.
Webpages are not indexed
You can check if Google can find you by typing, ‘site:yourdomain.com.’ If your website does not show up in the site search, this means that Google can’t find you. Consequently, you can’t rank if you can’t be found.
If results are shown, it shows that Google can find your website. It’s not just ranking yet. Google needs to index the pages in your website first. It uses bots or crawlers to index your website’s page. Page indexing could take hours, days or weeks.
Technical issues on your webpages
Your site might be encountering technical problems thus it is not showing on Google. You can check your website’s technical specs to see which pages are having issues. Go to search.google.com/search-console and log in your Google credentials. By using Google Search Console, you can check which pages are not indexed and the reasons for it. Your website may be blocked through robots.txt file disabling crawlers to index your web page.
Website is not optimized for mobile
Your website needs to be optimized on mobile too. To make sure that your website is mobile-friendly, run a test using this Google's mobile-friendly test site. Do an audit and make changes with your site and make it mobile-optimized.
Website is penalized
If the website fails to follow the guidelines set by Google, it can be penalized. The violation would significantly affect its ranking. The penalty could be due to manual review done on the website or by an algorithm that checks certain metrics on the website's quality.
Your website could be penalized due to: keyword stuffing, spams, bad links and other deceptive actions.
Unoriginal content
Google needs to see that your website adds value to the search intent. It should present content that is high-value to the users. Contents that are copy-paste would negatively impact your ranking.
Lack of backlinks
When credible websites link back to your own site, this signals Google that your site gains a popularity vote. The more votes you have, the higher the chance of getting recognised by the search engine. Backlinks are integral in showing that your site is trusted and relevant.
Website speed is slow
The loading speed of your website could also be another issue. When the webpage load is slow this leads to a poor user experience. This is not the kind of service Google wants to deliver to its client. Check the technical side of your website. Slow loading could be caused by using too many large photo files
Focusing on highly-competitive words
If your website is just new and your focus on highly-competitive words, it is challenging for your site to rank. In order to create a momentum for your site, target less competitive keywords as a start. Work on creating search engine optimized articles with high value to its users.
Conclusion
Ranking on Google takes time and hard work. Make sure to do a quality-check on your website to see if there are no technical issues. Address technical backlogs right away, if there is any. Keep yourself updated with the latest trends on SEO practices and implement this on your site. Overtime, you will see improvement on your website’s ranking.
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