Chirag DigitalStart with this 30-second test
Go to Google and search site:yourdomain.com, using your own domain. What comes back splits your problem in two, and the rest of this page depends on which half you are in.
- Zero results. Google has not indexed your site. This is an indexing problem — go to causes 1 to 5.
- Your pages are listed, but nobody visits. You are indexed and not ranking. This is a ranking or intent problem — go to causes 6 to 11.
Those are genuinely different problems with different fixes, and most advice online blurs them. Work out which one you have before changing anything.
Symptom-to-cause lookup
| What you are seeing | Most likely cause | Go to |
|---|---|---|
| Site launched in the last few weeks, nothing indexed | Not crawled yet | Cause 1 |
| Site was redesigned recently, then vanished | noindex left on | Cause 2 |
| Nothing indexed, site has been live for months | robots.txt block | Cause 3 |
| Homepage indexed, inner pages are not | Orphan pages | Cause 4 |
| Pages indexed under a different URL than expected | Canonical conflict | Cause 5 |
| Traffic fell off a cliff, no site changes | Manual action | Cause 6 |
| Pages crawled but never indexed | Thin or duplicate content | Cause 7 |
| Indexed, but never appears for your services | Keyword too competitive | Cause 8 |
| Ranking for odd, irrelevant phrases | Intent mismatch | Cause 9 |
| Friends elsewhere see you, locals do not | Local visibility | Cause 10 |
| Page looks fine to you, blank to Google | JavaScript rendering | Cause 11 |
Throughout, Search Console is the tool that settles arguments. If you have not set it up, do that first — everything below assumes you can see your own data.
Indexing problems: causes 1 to 5
1. The site is new and simply has not been crawled yet
What it looks like: a site launched in the last few weeks, no results in the site: test, no errors anywhere.
How to confirm: Search Console, Indexing → Pages. If URLs sit under "Discovered - currently not indexed", Google knows about them and has not got to them yet.
The fix: submit your sitemap under Indexing → Sitemaps, then use URL Inspection on your most important page and click Request Indexing. Then get at least one real link pointing at the site, from a directory, a supplier, an association, anywhere genuine. A brand new site with nothing linking to it gives Google no reason to hurry.
Recovery: days to a few weeks. Do not request indexing repeatedly; it does not speed anything up.
2. A noindex tag was left on after development
What it looks like: the site was redesigned or moved off a staging server, and disappeared from Google shortly after. This is the single most common cause we find after a redesign.
How to confirm: Pages report, look for "URL marked 'noindex'". Or open your page, view source, and search for noindex.
The fix: remove the tag. In WordPress it is usually Settings → Reading → "Discourage search engines from indexing this site", a checkbox developers tick during builds and forget. Your SEO plugin may also set it per page.
Recovery: one to three weeks once removed, faster if you request indexing on key pages.
3. robots.txt is blocking the crawler
What it looks like: nothing indexed, site live for months, no noindex tag anywhere.
How to confirm: visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. A line reading Disallow: / blocks your whole site. In Search Console, the Pages report shows "URL blocked by robots.txt".
The fix: remove the offending Disallow line. Be careful here — robots.txt is a small file where one character does a lot of damage, so change only the line you understand.
Worth knowing: robots.txt blocks crawling, not indexing. A blocked page can still appear in results with no description if other sites link to it. To keep a page out of Google properly, use noindex and let it be crawled.
Recovery: one to three weeks.
4. Nothing links to the page
What it looks like: the homepage is indexed, inner pages are not. Common when service pages exist only in a dropdown that renders with JavaScript, or when a page was published and never linked from anywhere.
How to confirm: Search Console, Links → Internal links. Pages with zero or one internal link are orphans. Cross-check against your full list of pages.
The fix: link to the page from somewhere sensible in the site — a parent service page, the footer, a related blog post. Internal links are how Google finds pages and how it judges which ones you consider important.
Recovery: one to four weeks.
5. The canonical tag points somewhere else
What it looks like: a page never appears, or a different URL appears in its place.
How to confirm: Pages report entries reading "Alternate page with proper canonical tag", "Duplicate without user-selected canonical", or "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user". URL Inspection shows both the canonical you declared and the one Google selected.
The fix: make each page's canonical point at itself, unless you deliberately want it consolidated elsewhere. Watch for templates that hard-code the homepage as canonical across every page, which silently removes your whole site from results.
Recovery: two to four weeks.
Ranking problems: causes 6 to 11
From here, your pages are indexed. The problem is that nobody arrives.
6. A manual action
What it looks like: traffic dropped sharply with no corresponding change on your site. Often follows work by a previous agency.
How to confirm: Search Console, Security & Manual Actions → Manual actions. It either says no issues detected, or names the problem precisely.
The fix: undo the cause, then request a review from that screen. Usually it is bought links, spun content, or hidden text. Removing it honestly is the only route; there is no appeal that works without a fix.
Recovery: a few weeks to a few months, and reviews are often rejected first time.
7. The content is too thin or too similar
What it looks like: pages get crawled, then sit there unindexed. Very common on sites with a dozen near-identical service or location pages.
How to confirm: Pages report, "Crawled - currently not indexed". This is not an error. It is Google saying it looked and decided the page was not worth storing.
The fix: stop resubmitting and improve the page. Specifics beat volume: real prices, real process, real photos, questions customers actually ask. If you have eight location pages differing only by the city name, either make each genuinely different or merge them into one strong page.
Recovery: four to eight weeks after real changes.
8. You are chasing a keyword you cannot win yet
What it looks like: everything technically fine, but you never appear for the terms you care about.
How to confirm: search your target term and look at who holds page one. If it is aggregators and national brands with years of history, a new site is not going to displace them this year.
The fix: go narrower. "Dentist in Delhi" is a fight; "root canal specialist in Rajouri Garden" is winnable. Win small terms, build authority, widen later. Search Console's Performance → Queries report will show terms you already rank 8 to 20 for, which are the cheapest wins available.
Recovery: four to eight months, honestly.
9. The page does not match what the searcher wants
What it looks like: you rank, but for phrases that never convert.
How to confirm: search your target keyword and look at what Google is actually rewarding. If page one is guides and yours is a sales page, Google has decided the query is informational.
The fix: match the format that is already ranking. Write the guide and link from it to your service page, rather than trying to force a service page into an informational result.
Recovery: one to three months.
10. You rank, but not where your customers are
What it looks like: a friend in another city finds you easily, local customers never do. Or the reverse.
How to confirm: in Performance, filter by Country: India and compare against your overall numbers. For local searches, results differ by the searcher's physical location, so checking from your own desk is unreliable.
The fix: this is local SEO rather than a technical fault. A complete Google Business Profile does more for local visibility than almost anything on your website — our profile checklist covers it. Add your city and locality to titles, headings and body text where it reads naturally.
Recovery: two to three months.
11. Your content is hidden behind JavaScript
What it looks like: the page looks complete in your browser but ranks for nothing. Common on page builders and single-page app frameworks.
How to confirm: URL Inspection → Test Live URL → View Tested Page → HTML. If your headings and body text are missing there, Google is not seeing them either. Quick version: right-click your page, View Source, and search for a sentence you can see on screen. If it is absent from the source, it is being injected after load.
The fix: get the important content into the server-rendered HTML. This is developer work, not a plugin setting.
Recovery: two to six weeks after the change ships.
"It shows for my business name, but nothing else"
This is normal, and it is not a fault. Ranking for your own name is easy because almost nothing competes for it. Ranking for "dentist in Rajouri Garden" is a completely different job.
Brand-only visibility tells you that you are indexed and that the technical side is fine. It tells you nothing about whether you are competitive. Those are causes 7 to 10, not an indexing problem, and no amount of resubmitting will change it.
How long indexing legitimately takes
| Situation | Reasonable wait | Worry after |
|---|---|---|
| New page on an established site | 1 to 7 days | 2 weeks |
| New page on a new site | 1 to 4 weeks | 6 weeks |
| Whole new site, no external links | 2 to 6 weeks | 8 weeks |
| Reindexing after removing noindex | 1 to 3 weeks | 4 weeks |
| Recovery after a manual action | Weeks to months | Varies |
Two things worth internalising. Google is under no obligation to index any page, and a sitemap helps discovery but never guarantees inclusion. If a page has been crawled and passed over, the answer is a better page, not another submission.
The order to work through this
- Run the
site:test to decide which half of the problem you have - Open Search Console and read the Pages report, matching the exact wording above
- Check Manual Actions, which takes ten seconds and rules out the worst case
- Fix the single most likely cause, not five things at once
- Request indexing on the affected pages, once
- Wait the realistic time from the table before concluding it failed
Changing several things simultaneously is the most common mistake, because when something improves you will not know what did it. If the underlying issue is broader than one page, the SEO fundamentals guide covers what to build once the technical side is clear.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take for a new website to appear on Google?
Commonly a few days to a few weeks. A brand new site with no external links can take longer because Google has no signal pointing to it. If nothing is indexed after four weeks and Search Console shows no errors, something is usually blocking the crawler.
What does "Crawled - currently not indexed" mean in Search Console?
Google fetched the page and chose not to index it. It is a quality judgement, not an error, and usually points to thin content, near-duplicate pages, or a page that adds nothing beyond what is already indexed. Improve the page rather than resubmitting it repeatedly.
Why does my website only show when I search its name?
That is normal for a new or small site. Ranking for your own brand is easy because nothing competes for it. Ranking for service terms is a separate job that needs relevant pages, content and time. Brand-only visibility means you are indexed, not that you are competitive.
Does submitting a sitemap guarantee my pages get indexed?
No. A sitemap helps Google discover URLs but it never obliges Google to index them. Pages still have to pass a quality threshold. A sitemap is useful for large sites and new sites, and it will not rescue thin or duplicate pages.
Will requesting indexing in Search Console make my page rank?
No. Requesting indexing asks Google to look at the page sooner. It has no effect on where the page ranks once indexed, and repeatedly requesting it does not speed anything up or improve position.
If you have worked through this and it is still wrong
Some of these overlap, and it is genuinely hard to tell cause 7 from cause 8 when you are looking at your own site. That is what our SEO audit is for: indexability, crawl paths, canonicals, redirects and sitemap coverage, checked by hand rather than by a tool export, with the specific URLs and the fix for each.