Is Your Website on Google? Check in Two Minutes

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By Brandon Aubey

In short: A quick way to see if Google has your pages, and the SEO fixes if it does not. Nothing else matters until this is done.

Most owners pay for a website and assume Google has it. A lot of the time, Google does not. You can find out in about two minutes. Here’s how, and what to do if it fails.

Why this comes first

SEO means showing up on Google when someone searches. Before Google can show your page, it has to index it. Indexed just means Google has the page saved in its list. If a page isn’t in the list, it can’t rank. Period.

So if you’re paying for SEO and your pages aren’t indexed, you’re paying for nothing. Same thing if you write blog posts every week. Nobody sees them. That’s why this check comes before everything else.

The two minute check

1. Open Google.
2. Type site:yourdomain.com and hit search. Use your real domain, like site:elpasoplumbingpros.com.
3. Look at what comes back.

If your pages show up, good. Google has your site. Scroll through and see if any pages are missing. If a page you care about isn’t there, write it down.

If nothing comes back, Google can’t see your site. Nothing else you do online matters until that’s fixed.

Fix one: the WordPress box

A lot of sites are hidden by one checkbox. Web designers tick it while they build the site. Then they forget to untick it when the site goes live.

1. Log in to WordPress.
2. Go to Settings, then Reading.
3. Find the box that says “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.”
4. Make sure it is unchecked.
5. Save.

I’ve seen this on sites that were live for a year. The owner thought SEO just didn’t work for them. It was one box.

Fix two: Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google. It tells you what Google sees on your site. Every business should have it set up.

1. Go to Google Search Console and sign in with a Google account.
2. Add your domain as a property.
3. Verify it. Google gives you a few ways. Most hosts let you add a small record to your domain settings.
4. Wait for the green check.

If your web person set up the site, ask them to add you. You should own this. Not them.

Fix three: submit your sitemap

A sitemap lists every page on your site. Submitting it tells Google to go crawl those pages. Crawling means Google’s robot visits the page and reads it.

1. In Search Console, click Sitemaps in the left menu.
2. Paste your sitemap URL. On most WordPress sites it looks like yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml.
3. Click Submit.

A couple of days later, run the site: search again. Your pages should start to show up. Now your site actually exists to Google.

Fix four: inspect one page

Say one page is missing. Maybe your new water heater page. Here’s how to find out why.

1. In Search Console, paste the page URL into the search bar at the top. That’s the URL inspection tool.
2. Google tells you if the page is indexed. If not, it tells you why.
3. If it just hasn’t been crawled yet, click Request Indexing. That asks Google to come look soon.

Sometimes the fix is that simple. Sometimes the report points to a real problem. Either way, now you know.

The AI content trap

A guy told me he posts an AI blog every day. I asked if any of them rank. He had no idea. He’d never checked.

So check. Run the site: search. Then open Search Console and click Pages. Scroll down to the list of reasons pages aren’t indexed.

I’d bet most of those AI pages sit in one bucket. The bucket is called Crawled, currently not indexed. That means Google read the page and passed on it. The page didn’t add anything new. It said what a thousand other pages already say.

Google doesn’t need another generic post about why you should clean your gutters. It needs something only you can say. What a job in El Paso actually costs. What breaks in our heat. What you see on your trucks every week.

So don’t just do stuff for the sake of doing stuff. Check if it’s working first.

Where to go from here

Run the check today. If your pages are there, great. Now SEO work has a chance. If they’re not, go through the four fixes in order. Most sites are showing up within a week.

If you’d rather we handle it, that’s part of our SEO services. Or book a strategy call and we’ll run the check with you.

We can do this for you

You can do everything above yourself. Most owners do not have the hours. Dead River Management builds and runs it for home service businesses. We work in El Paso and across the country. You keep running jobs. We handle the search work. You judge us on booked jobs, not reports. See SEO services, read about the Demand Flow guarantee, or book a strategy call.

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