Why is my business not showing up on Google?

First, pin down which kind of missing

Not showing up means different things, and each has a different fix. Try three searches on a phone, ideally away from your shop: your exact business name, your name plus your town, and your main service plus your town. Note where you appear, if anywhere: the map results, the regular results below them, or neither.

• Missing for your own name on Maps points to a Business Profile problem.
• Missing for your own name in the regular results points to a website indexing problem.
• Found by name but not for your services points to relevance, distance or prominence.

If your Business Profile is the problem

Open the profile while signed in to the Google Account that manages it and look for these causes.

• Not verified. Google says verification makes a profile more likely to show in results. After you complete the steps, its review takes up to 5 business days.
• Suspended or restricted. Profiles that break Google's guidelines, for example with keywords stuffed into the name or a virtual office address, risk suspension. Fake or paid reviews can lead to restrictions on new reviews.
• Duplicates. Google wants one profile per business location, and duplicates can cause problems with how your information displays on Maps and Search.
• Wrong category. Google says your categories affect local ranking, so a vague primary category hides you from specific searches.
• Recent edits. Changing a category can prompt Google to ask you to verify again.

If your website is the problem

Google finds most sites automatically, but it admits some get missed. Start with a site: search, typing site:yourdomain.com into Google. If nothing comes back, or key pages are absent, Google's own list of common reasons is short. Search Console is the tool for checking all of them: URL Inspection shows whether Google indexed a page and why not, and the Page indexing report lists which pages are in and which are excluded.

• The site is new. Google says it can take a few weeks to notice a new site or changes to an existing one.
• No other sites link to it, so Google has no path to discover it.
• Google hit an error, often because pages sit behind a login or the site blocks Google.
• The content is mostly images or video instead of text Google can read.
• A noindex tag. Google drops a page carrying one from results entirely, and redesigns sometimes leave the tag behind from a test version of the site.
• A manual action. If a reviewer at Google finds spam, some or all of a site can be left out of results, and the Manual actions report in Search Console will say so.

If you show for your name but not for your services

This is the most common situation, and it isn't a technical fault. Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. If your profile has one general category and your website lists every service in a single sentence, Google has little to match against a search for a specific job. Distance matters too: someone searching from the next town over will see closer businesses first.

The fixes are steady rather than instant: a specific primary category, services added to the profile, a page for each main service and the areas you serve, and a habit of asking every customer for a review. If you have worked through this page and still can't see the cause, bring your website and profile to a free 30-minute strategy call with Nick.

What won't fix it

A few common responses waste money or time without touching the actual cause.

• Paying Google. Google says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its organic results.
• Running ads to fix organic visibility. Advertising has no effect on organic rankings, although ads can put you on the page while you repair the rest.
• Submitting your site to thousands of search engines. Google calls that kind of offer a typically useless exercise.
• Requesting indexing for the same page over and over. Google sets a quota, and a request doesn't mean the page will appear right away.

Keep reading

• How do I get my business in the Google map pack?
• How do I optimize my Google Business Profile?
• How long does SEO take to work?
• How do I know if my website is losing customers?
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