Google & SEO problems
Not showing on Google and wrong search listings. Start with the free guide that matches your situation.
Alternate Page With Proper Canonical Tag: Do You Need to Fix It?
Search Console lists pages as "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" and not indexed — they point to a main version of themselves, and Google respected that. In almost every case it is working as designed.
Read the guideBusiness Not Showing on Google Maps
Your business doesn't appear on Google Maps or in the map results when people search — because the Google Business Profile is missing, unverified, suspended, set up as a hidden-address service business, or simply being outranked nearby.
Read the guideCrawled - Currently Not Indexed (and Other Search Console Statuses)
Google Search Console lists some of your pages as "Crawled - currently not indexed" or "Discovered - currently not indexed" — Google knows the pages exist but has chosen not to put them in search results yet.
Read the guideDiscovered - Currently Not Indexed: What It Means and Fixes
Search Console says some pages are "Discovered - currently not indexed" — Google knows the addresses exist but has not visited them yet, usually because it decided they could wait.
Read the guideDuplicate Without User-Selected Canonical: What to Do
Search Console says pages are "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" or "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user" — Google found near-identical pages and picked which one to show. Often fine; sometimes it picks the wrong one.
Read the guideGoogle Analytics Not Tracking Visitors
Google Analytics shows zero visitors, a sudden drop to nothing, or no data at all — even though you know people are visiting the site.
Read the guideGoogle Manual Action Penalty in Search Console: What to Do caution
Search Console says your site has a Google manual action — a human reviewer at Google found something that breaks its spam policies, and some or all of your pages have been demoted or removed until it is fixed and a reconsideration request is approved.
Read the guideGoogle Reviews Disappeared or Not Showing on Your Business Profile
Your Google reviews disappeared or are not showing — your review count dropped, specific reviews vanished, or customers say they left a review that never appeared on your Google Business Profile.
Read the guideGoogle Search Result Shows Wrong Title or Description
Your Google listing shows an outdated, incorrect, or unappealing title and description — your storefront sign in search, written badly or by nobody.
Read the guideHow Long Does It Take Google to Index a New Website?
You launched a new site and it is not in Google yet. First indexing usually takes days to a few weeks — here is what is normal, what speeds it up, and when the wait means something is actually wrong.
Read the guideHow to Add Your Website to Google Search Console
Google Search Console is Google's free tool for site owners. Adding and verifying your site, then submitting a sitemap, is the closest thing there is to "submitting your website to Google" — and it shows you exactly what Google sees.
Read the guideHow to Check If Google Has Indexed Your Website
You want to know whether Google actually has your site, or a specific page, in its index — the free ways to check, what each one can and cannot tell you, and what to do with the answer.
Read the guideHow to Set Up Google Analytics 4 on Your Website (and Check It Works)
You want to know how to set up Google Analytics 4 on your website — create the property, get the G- measurement ID, install it on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, or a custom site, and confirm it is really counting visitors and form submissions.
Read the guideIndexed, Though Blocked by robots.txt: What It Means and Fixes
Search Console reports "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt" or "Blocked by robots.txt" — your robots.txt file tells Google not to crawl certain pages, yet some of them still show up in search, or pages you wanted in Google are being kept out.
Read the guideLink Preview Wrong on Facebook or Social Media
When you share your site on Facebook, LinkedIn, or in a text message, the preview shows the wrong image, an old title, or nothing at all.
Read the guidePage With Redirect in Search Console: Is It a Problem?
Search Console lists pages as "Page with redirect" and not indexed — it means those addresses forward somewhere else, so Google indexes the destination instead. Usually fine, occasionally a sign of a mix-up.
Read the guideRemove Old or Deleted Pages From Google
Outdated, deleted, or duplicate pages still show up in Google search results — because Google shows what it last saw, until you send the right signal about what changed.
Read the guideServer Error (5xx) in Google Search Console: What to Do
Search Console lists pages as "Server error (5xx)" — when Googlebot tried to crawl them, your server answered with an error instead of the page.
Read the guideSitemap Couldn't Fetch or Could Not Be Read in Search Console
You submitted your sitemap in Google Search Console and it says "Couldn't fetch" or "Sitemap could not be read" instead of Success — Google either could not download the file or could not make sense of what it got.
Read the guideSoft 404 Errors in Google Search Console: Causes and Fixes
Search Console lists pages as "Soft 404" — the pages load normally, but Google thinks they look empty, missing, or useless, so it treats them like a not-found page and leaves them out of search.
Read the guideWebsite Not Showing in ChatGPT, Copilot or Bing
You asked ChatGPT or Copilot about businesses like yours and yours never came up — or you searched Bing and your site isn't there. Here is how these tools find websites, what commonly blocks them, and what you can actually check.
Read the guideWebsite Not Showing When You Search Your Business Name
You type your own business name into Google and your website is nowhere to be seen — or it sits below directories, social profiles, and similarly named businesses.
Read the guideWhy Is My Website Not Showing Up on Google? How to Fix It
Your site exists and works, but it doesn't appear in Google when people search for it — or even for your business name.
Read the guideWordPress Is Blocking Google (Noindex / Discourage Search Engines)
Your WordPress site is telling Google to stay away — usually through the "Discourage search engines" checkbox, an SEO plugin noindex setting, or a robots.txt rule left over from building or staging the site.
Read the guideYour Site Suddenly Dropped in Google Rankings
Your pages ranked well, then fell sharply in Google and traffic dropped with them. The cause is diagnosable — and the diagnosis decides everything about the fix.
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