Google finds most websites on its own, for free, by following links. To speed it up, check nothing is hiding the site, add it to Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and request indexing for your key pages. Expect days to a few weeks. If a page still will not appear, Google has usually found it and chosen to wait.
Most guides to this question are really about ranking: keywords, speed, backlinks. That is a fair question for later. If you search for your business and your website is not there at all, you need something more basic first, and it is mostly free.
We launched this site in September 2026, so we have been through it recently. Two months in, our pricing page was still not on Google. Below is what Google itself says about each step, what we saw on our own site, and what 111 established local business homepages showed when we checked them on 7 November 2026.
Is my website on Google at all?
Search Google for site:yourdomain.com, with your own domain and no spaces. If nothing comes back, Google has not indexed any of the site. If some pages come back, it has found you, and the question becomes which pages are missing.
Treat that as a rough check. Google says the site: search does not always list every page it has indexed. The reliable answer for any one page comes from the URL Inspection tool in Search Console, set up in step three below.
How do I get my website on Google?
In this order. The first two steps take minutes, and most sites never need more than the first five.
| Step | What to do | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Check nothing is hiding it | Open the site in a private window, then check the “hide from search engines” setting described below | Removes the most common reason a whole new site is invisible |
| 2. Run the site: search | Search site:yourdomain.com | Shows roughly what Google already has |
| 3. Add the site to Search Console | Choose a Domain property and verify it with the DNS record Google gives you | Gives you Google’s own view of every page |
| 4. Submit your sitemap | Load your sitemap URL to check it works, then paste it into the Sitemaps report | Hands Google a list of your pages. Google calls it a hint, not an instruction |
| 5. Request indexing for key pages | Inspect your homepage and main service pages, then click Request indexing | Puts each page in Google’s queue. It does not guarantee anything |
| 6. Read the Page indexing report | Check why any important page is not indexed | Tells you whether to fix something or wait |
| 7. Get linked from real sites | Suppliers, trade bodies, local directories, the local paper | Links are how Google discovers sites and decides they matter |
Steps drawn from Google’s own documentation, checked 7 November 2026: Get your website on Google, the sitemaps overview and the URL Inspection help page.
A Domain property is the better choice for most small businesses. It covers the www and non-www versions of your site and both http and https, so nothing slips through. You need access to your domain’s DNS settings to verify it. If you cannot get that, a URL-prefix property works, but it only covers the exact address you type.
Google also says a site of about 500 pages or fewer, well linked from its own homepage, may not need a sitemap at all. Submitting one still does no harm, and it gives you a report to read.
Is something blocking Google from my site?
Rarely, on an established site. On 7 November we fetched 122 local business homepages from earlier studies. 11 sent back a bot check instead of the page, so these figures cover the 111 that loaded.
| What we checked | Homepages |
|---|---|
| Tells Google not to index the homepage (noindex) | 1 of 111 |
| robots.txt blocks the whole site | 0 of 111 |
| A sitemap answers at a standard address or the one robots.txt names | 104 of 111 |
| No sitemap found anywhere | 5 of 111 |
| Page title missing, “Home”, or only the business name | 7 of 111 |
| No meta description | 13 of 111 |
Please Mention Me study of public homepage source, without running scripts. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, roofers, landscapers, pest control, dentists and accountants in US metros. Homepages only. No business is named.
So for most established sites, “not on Google” is not a switch left off. A brand new site is different, because the switch is often still on from the build. Check these three places first:
- WordPress: Settings, then Reading, then “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”. It should be unticked.
- Wix: the “Let search engines index your site” toggle in SEO settings. It should be on.
- Any builder: a site-wide password, or a page marked hidden from search results. Either keeps Google out.
One more trap: robots.txt is not the way to hide a page. Google says plainly that blocking a page in robots.txt does not keep it out of results, and a blocked page can still show up as a bare address. To keep a page out, Google says to use noindex, and robots.txt must let Google in to read it.
Which sitemap address do I submit?
The one your site actually serves, which is not always the one a guide tells you. Open it in a browser before you submit it. It should load and list the pages you care about.
| Platform | Sitemap address |
|---|---|
| WordPress, no SEO plugin | /wp-sitemap.xml |
| WordPress with Yoast or Rank Math | /sitemap_index.xml |
| Wix | /sitemap.xml |
| Squarespace | /sitemap.xml |
| Shopify | /sitemap.xml |
We got this wrong on our own site at first. Plain WordPress only answers /wp-sitemap.xml, and anyone used to an SEO plugin submits /sitemap_index.xml, which then fails. Our site now redirects the common wrong addresses to the right one. We also found our page cache serving Google a sitemap that was a week out of date, so Search Console said it could not be read. If you use a caching plugin, check it is not caching the sitemap.
Ignore advice to “ping Google” with your sitemap address. Google retired that service in 2023 and the address now returns an error.
What do the Search Console statuses mean?
The Page indexing report gives each page a reason. These are the ones a small site sees most, with what Google says each one means.
| Status | What Google says it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| URL is unknown to Google | Google has never seen the address | Make sure another page on your site links to it, then request indexing |
| Discovered, currently not indexed | Found but not crawled yet. Google usually delays the crawl because it expects it to overload the site | Link to it from your homepage or menu, request indexing once, then wait |
| Crawled, currently not indexed | Crawled and not chosen. Google says this is common | For an important page, make it more useful than the other pages competing for that search |
| Page with redirect | An address that redirects elsewhere | Nothing, if it is the http or www version of a page |
| Excluded by noindex | The page asks not to be indexed | Remove the noindex if you want it found |
| Blocked by robots.txt | Google may not crawl it, though it can still be listed | Use noindex instead if you want it hidden |
From Google’s Page indexing report help, checked 7 November 2026. The “what to do” column is our advice.
Google also says not to expect every page on a site to be indexed. Make sure the pages people would actually search for are, and do not worry about tag archives or feed addresses.
How long does it take for Google to index a new website?
Usually days to a few weeks, going by Google’s own figures. Nobody can give you a date, and every figure below comes with the same caveat that indexing is not guaranteed.
| What happens | Google’s figure | Where Google says it |
|---|---|---|
| Google notices a new site | A few weeks | Get your website on Google |
| Google crawls a page you asked about | A few days to a few weeks | Ask Google to recrawl |
| A requested page is indexed | Usually a day or so, up to a week or two | URL Inspection help |
| A change takes effect | A few hours to several months | SEO Starter Guide |
Requesting indexing again does not help. Google says asking repeatedly for the same page will not get it crawled any faster, and there is a daily limit on requests. Google does not publish the number.
What happened when we put our own site on Google
This is the part most guides cannot show you, so here is ours, as Search Console reported it.
| Date | What Search Console showed |
|---|---|
| 17 September | 15 pages indexed and 4 not: 3 redirects, which are expected, and 1 page discovered but not crawled. Our first batch of indexing requests hit the daily limit. |
| 13 October | 23 pages indexed. 114 impressions in 28 days, no clicks. |
| 23 October | 32 pages indexed and 8 not. Our pricing page and our statistics page were both discovered but not crawled. |
| 5 November | 1,420 impressions in 28 days and 1 click. The first indexing request of the day returned “Quota Exceeded”. |
Two things stand out. Getting indexed was fast for most pages and slow for a few important ones, and resubmitting did not change that. And being indexed is not the same as being seen: on 5 November our average position across all searches was 61, which is page seven.
Our pricing page sat at “discovered, currently not indexed” for weeks, on a site of about forty pages. Google’s stated reason, that crawling might overload the site, is hard to square with a site that small. My reading is that a new domain with few links pointing at it simply sits low in Google’s queue.
The fix for that is not pressing Request indexing every morning. It is links from other real sites, and making sure your own homepage links to the pages you want found. That is slower and less satisfying than a button, which is probably why so few guides say it.
Does it cost anything to get on Google?
No. Google says it never accepts money to include or rank a site in its search results. Most of the paid shortcuts sold for this do nothing.
| Claim | What Google says |
|---|---|
| You can pay Google to be listed | False. Appearing in organic results is free |
| Running Google Ads helps your free listing | False. Ads have no effect on organic results |
| You can pay for a better Maps ranking | False. There is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking |
| A “submit to 1,000 search engines” service helps | Google calls this typically useless |
| IndexNow gets you indexed on Google | Google is not on the list of engines that take part. IndexNow reaches Bing and several others |
| Someone can guarantee a number one position | False. Google says nobody can |
Google’s guidance on hiring an SEO and local ranking help, and the IndexNow list of participating engines, all checked 7 November 2026.
We do use IndexNow on this site, because it is free and tells Bing about each change as we publish it. It just does nothing for Google.
My site is on Google. Why does nobody find it?
Because being indexed only gets you into the index, and ranking is a separate job. For a local business it comes down to three things:
- Pages that match what people search. One page per service, written in the words a customer would use. How many pages a small business website needs sets out the structure.
- A Business Profile. It puts you on Maps and in the local results, and it is separate from your website. The steps are in how to get your business on Google Maps, and how the two work together is in do I need a website if I have a Business Profile.
- Other sites mentioning you. Google says links and reviews feed how prominent a local business looks. If you are thinking of paying for help, what SEO costs shows what published plans charge and promise.
If you are showing up and still not getting calls, the problem is usually further along. Why your website is not getting leads works through it, cheapest fix first.
If someone offers to “submit your site to Google” for a fee, walk away. Everything in the first half of this page is free and takes an afternoon. Pay for help with the second half, if you pay for anything.
Common questions
Is it free to put my website on Google?
Yes. Google does not charge to include or rank a site in its normal results, and Search Console is free. Google Ads is a separate, paid product, and buying ads does not change where your site appears in the free listings.
Why is my website not showing up on Google?
For a brand new site, usually because Google has not found it yet or a setting is still hiding it. For an older site, Google has usually found the page and chosen not to index or rank it. URL Inspection in Search Console tells you which.
How do I get Google to index my site faster?
Request indexing once for each key page, submit your sitemap, and link to the pages from your homepage. After that, links from other sites help most. Asking again for the same page does not speed it up.
Do I need a sitemap?
Not always. Google says a site of about 500 pages or fewer that links well between its own pages may not need one. Most platforms create one anyway, so submit it in Search Console. It costs nothing and gives you a report to check.
Does a Google Business Profile put my website on Google?
No. A Business Profile puts your business on Maps and in local results, and it can link to your website. The website itself still has to be found and indexed through the steps above. The two are separate, and most local businesses need both.
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