Are Crawling Issues Hiding Your Site From Google?

Setting up a new website is hard work. And going through the entire process of writing, designing, and building a website—or even an entire blog series—only to hear crickets in your Google Search Console can be nothing short of demoralising.

Your first reaction may be to wonder whether your content is up to par. After all, writing good quality content is one of the most commonly touted advice for SEO.

But sometimes, the problem may not lie with your content.

It may simply be the fact that Google doesn’t even know your website exists.

 

What does it mean for Google to crawl a website?

Think of Google as a library, and your website as a book.

Your book has to be found first before it can sit on Google’s shelves.

Google’s librarians are bots, sent to browse the internet and discover new websites. This process is known as crawling.

Indexing is what happens next. When Google adds your website to its search results collection after discovering it through crawling. This is the stage where content quality matters more, but we won’t be covering that in this article just yet.

 

How to check if my website has been crawled

Before we dive into fixes, here’s a quick check you can do right now.

Search site: yourwebsite.com directly on Google. 

If your pages show up there, congratulations. Google has found some of you.

If nothing comes back, you have a crawling problem. 

And no amount of good content will help until that is resolved.

 

Why won't Google crawl my website?

Because there are so many things that go into building a new website, it’s surprisingly easy to accidentally block Google without realising it. Even more so with AI website builders that allow you to launch a site without ever touching a settings panel.

Luckily, most common causes can be fixed pretty easily.

 

Your platform is telling Google crawlers to stay away

Most web platforms have a setting that is designed to keep search engines out while your site is still under construction. While this is useful during development, you’ll be surprised at how many forget to switch it off after launch.

As long as it’s still on, Google won’t be able to find your website.

Here’s how to quickly fix this issue on your platform.

 

 

If your hosting platform isn’t listed here, a quick search for [your platform] + disable search engine crawling should point you in the right direction. Feel free to reach out if you’d like us to add your platform’s instructions to this list.

 

Check if crawlers are blocked using robots.txt

Every website has a robots.txt file that informs search engines and other bots about which parts of the website they’re allowed to visit. Think of it as a set of house rules posted on your website’s front door.

Most web builders will have generated this for you automatically, and you can view your robots.txt rules by going to yourwebsite.com/robots.txt.

Reading the file should be intuitive even if you do not have any coding background. Simply confirm that you do not have any Disallow: / rules applied to crawlers that you actually want on your website. Examples include:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /

or

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

If you spot anything like this, toggling your settings according to the instructions in the previous section should remove them automatically. Some platforms also allow you to edit the robots.txt file directly.

 

Google can't navigate your site

You can’t enter rooms without a door, so don’t expect Google to navigate a site without links. If your homepage is already being crawled but the rest of your site isn’t, chances are that there’s no path for crawlers to find their way to your other pages. 

The most common fix is simply making sure your site has a navigation menu that links to your main pages. Internal links within your content help too, like linking to your services page from a relevant blog post. 

Always remember that Google navigates your site the same way visitors do. This means making it easy for users to backtrack if necessary, usually through a breadcrumb that tells them where they are on your site. 

You haven't submitted a sitemap

A sitemap is a file that lists the pages on your site and tells search engines where to find them. Like the robots.txt, most web builders generate sitemaps automatically. You can check whether yours exists by going to yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml or yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml. 

If the address loads a list of URLs, congratulations, you have a sitemap. Again, the file is more readable than you think, so scroll through and check that your priority landing pages are listed insist.

But, if the sitemap URL directs you to a 404 error, here are the easiest ways you can generate one:

 

 

Once you have a sitemap URL, submit it to Google Search Console by selecting your website’s property and typing in your sitemap URL under Indexing > Sitemaps > Add a new sitemap.

 

Other technical issues that may stop Google from crawling your site

Most solopreneurs and small businesses should be able to solve their crawling issues through one of the above methods. That said, if you’ve checked everything and are still stuck, here are some other technical issues that you may wish to be aware of:

• Slow server response times: If your server takes too long to respond, Google’s crawlers may just abandon the request and move on.

• JavaScript-heavy pages: Content that only loads via JavaScript can be missed when Google moves on before it renders.

• Redirect chains: Forcing multiple loops before reaching a destination wastes crawl budget and can cause Google’s crawlers to skip you.

We won’t be covering them today, but these issues are still worth knowing in case you encounter them now or in the future.

 

Find out if you’ve got a crawl problem—or something else

There are literally hundreds of reasons why a website won’t rank, and working through them one by one may not be a luxury that business owners have. Give yourself the peace of mind you deserve by getting a clear diagnosis and fix within days by signing up for an SEO consultation.

The best part? You get a full rebate if you decide to sign up for selected SEO retainers later.