Why your website is not ranking: the eight causes, how to check each, and the fix

A website that does not rank almost never has a mysterious penalty. It has one of eight ordinary problems: it is not indexed, it is too slow on a phone, it is one page trying to rank for everything, its pages could be about any business anywhere, its titles were left on the defaults, its facts disagree with its Google Business Profile, it has no evidence a real business is behind it, or nobody has a reason to link to it. Search Console shows which within ten minutes, and the fixes range from an afternoon to six months.

1. Google has not indexed it

More common than anyone expects, and it makes every other fix pointless. A noindex tag left on from the build, a robots file blocking everything, a sitemap never submitted, pages so similar that Google keeps one and drops the rest, or a site so slow that the crawler gives up. An air-conditioning company came to us with 71 of 120 pages indexed; 53 product pages had simply been dropped. The check is Search Console's Pages report: indexed pages against the number you have, and the reasons listed for the rest. The fix depends on the reason, and 33 of those 53 were back within a week of it.

2. It is too slow on a phone

A page builder site with unoptimised images, a dozen scripts and fonts from three places takes five or six seconds to become usable on a phone over 4G, and the person searching has already gone back. Google measures this, and it counts modestly for ranking and heavily for whether anyone stays. The check is PageSpeed Insights on the home page and your busiest service page, mobile tab. Under 90 is a job; under 50 is the first job. A tuning site we rebuilt went from 65 to 96 without changing what it said.

3. It is one page

A single page with sections for services, about and contact can rank for your business name and little else. Google ranks pages for searches, and one page cannot be the best answer to three different services at once. The check is to count your pages: if the services you sell outnumber the pages you have, that is the cause. The fix is a page per service you want more of, each with its own title, its own opening paragraph and its own questions.

4. The pages could be about any business anywhere

"We provide a professional, reliable service to domestic and commercial customers" appears on hundreds of thousands of sites, and Google has read all of them. A page ranks when it is the most useful answer for a specific search, which means it names the job, the area, what is involved, what changes the price, and how long it takes. The check is to read your busiest page and delete every sentence that would be true of a competitor; what is left is what Google can rank. Specific beats polished every time.

5. Titles and descriptions were left on the defaults

The page title is the blue link in Google. If it says "Home", "Services" or the business name alone, the page is not competing for anything. The check is to search site:yourdomain.co.uk and read the titles as a customer would. The fix is a title per page that leads with the service and the area in plain words, under 60 characters, and a description that says why to click. It is an afternoon's work with an outsized effect on clicks, and Search Console's pages-shown-but-not-clicked list tells you where to start.

6. The site and the profile disagree

A different phone number on the profile, a different trading name in the footer, an old address on a directory. Each mismatch is a small reason for Google to trust the whole set less, and the AI assistants cross-check the same facts before naming a business. The check is to write your name, address and phone number as they appear on the site, the profile, and the three biggest directories, side by side. The fix is one name, one number, one address, everywhere.

7. Nothing proves a real business is behind it

No named person, no address, no photographs of actual work, no registration number, stock images throughout. Google's guidelines call this experience, expertise, authority and trust; for a business it is simple: show the person, the premises, the work, the certificates and the reviews. A site that looks like a template with the name changed is treated like one. The check is to ask whether a stranger could tell from the site that you exist. The fix is photographs, a real about page and the registration numbers you already have.

8. There is no reason for anyone to link to it

Links still matter for competitive searches, and most business sites have none because there is nothing to link to. A useful guide, a trade body listing, a supplier's stockist page, a mention in the local paper, a sponsorship: these are how a small site earns the handful of links that separate page one from page two. The check is Search Console's links report. The fix is slow and it is never bought; the bought kind is the fastest way to lose everything the other seven fixes built.

We check all eight before we quote, in this order, because the first two make the rest irrelevant until they are fixed. Sometimes the answer is that the site is fine and the profile is the problem, and we say so, because that fix is cheaper and faster than anything on this list.