5 reasons your website is not ranking in Google, and how to check each one

Your website is usually not ranking on Google for one of five reasons, and they should be checked in this order: Google has not indexed the page, a technical problem is blocking it, the page does not match what the searcher wants, the site does not yet have the authority the term needs, or the competition for that term is simply stronger. Each check rules out the ones after it, and most of them can be run in Google Search Console in under an hour. This post walks through the five in order, with the report to open and the fix for each.

Reason 1: Google has not indexed the page

A page that is not in Google’s index cannot rank, and this is the first thing to rule out because it explains more “not ranking” cases than any other. Search for site:yourdomain.com.au/the-page/ in Google. If nothing comes back, the page is not indexed.

Then open Search Console and paste the URL into the URL inspection bar at the top. It tells you whether the page is indexed, when it was last crawled, and if it is not indexed, why. The Pages report under Indexing lists every reason across the site. The common ones:

• Excluded by noindex tag. Often left on from a staging site or ticked in a plugin setting. Remove it and request indexing.
• Blocked by robots.txt. A disallow rule covering the folder. Fix the rule.
• Alternate page with proper canonical tag. The page points its canonical at another URL, so Google indexed that one instead. Correct the canonical.
• Discovered, currently not crawled or Crawled, currently not indexed. Google knows the page exists and has decided it is not worth indexing yet. This is a quality or internal linking signal, not a technical block, and the fix is to improve the page and link to it from pages that are indexed.
• Not found (404) or Soft 404. The page returns an error, or returns a thin page Google treats as empty.

For a new site, check that an XML sitemap has been submitted under Indexing, Sitemaps, and that the site is not set to discourage search engines in its CMS settings. On WordPress that box is under Settings, Reading.

Reason 2: A technical problem is blocking the page

Once a page is indexed, technical problems stop it competing. Google ranks the mobile version of the page, so open it on a phone first: if content is hidden, cut off or slow to appear, that is what Google sees.

Run these checks in Search Console:

• Core Web Vitals under Experience. Pages marked poor are being held back by loading speed, layout shift or slow interaction, and on most sites the cause is oversized images, too many scripts or cheap hosting.
• HTTPS under Experience. Every page should be served securely, with the HTTP version redirecting to it.
• Duplicate versions. If the site answers on both www and non-www, or on HTTP and HTTPS, without redirects, Google is splitting signals across copies. Pick one and redirect the rest.
• Redirect chains and broken internal links. A crawl with any desktop crawler will list them. Each hop wastes crawl budget and leaks authority.
• JavaScript rendering. If the page’s main content only appears after scripts run, use URL inspection’s “View crawled page” to confirm Google sees the text. If it does not, the content is invisible to it.

Technical fixes are the fastest to show results, because they remove a block rather than build something new. Our technical SEO service covers the full audit if the list above is unfamiliar.

Reason 3: The page does not match search intent

A page that is indexed and technically clean but still not ranking is usually the wrong kind of page for the query. Search the term and look at what Google is showing: if the results are guides and yours is a service page, or the results are product listings and yours is a blog post, Google has already decided what the searcher wants and your page is not it.

Check the Performance report in Search Console, filtered to the page. If it has impressions for the target query but an average position of 30 or worse, Google recognises the page is about the topic and has judged it a weak answer. Three things fix that:

• Answer the query directly in the first paragraph, then structure the page with headings that follow the questions a searcher would ask next.
• Cover what the ranking pages cover, then add what they miss. A page that is thinner than every competitor will not pass them.
• Merge pages that compete with each other. If two of your URLs show for the same query, they are splitting the signal. Consolidate into one and redirect the other.

This is also where most “why is my content not ranking” questions land. Content ranks when it is the clearest answer for a specific query, not when it is well written in general.

Reason 4: The site does not have enough authority yet

Google weighs how many relevant, respected sites link to yours, and a new or small site will lose to established ones on competitive terms until it has earned some of that. This is not a fault in the page. It is the reason the same page can rank on one domain and not on another.

Check the Links report in Search Console for the sites linking to you. A short list dominated by directories and your own social profiles means authority is the constraint. A long list full of unrelated foreign sites and spam can mean the opposite problem: links that were bought or acquired by a previous agency, which are best disavowed.

The fixes are slow and there is no shortcut that lasts:

• Earn links from relevant local and industry sites: suppliers, associations, sponsorships, local press, guest articles that would be worth publishing without the link.
• Use internal links to concentrate the authority you do have on the pages that need it. Our guide to internal linking for SEO covers the method.
• Target the specific, longer queries that established sites ignore while the authority builds, and treat the head terms as a later goal.

Reason 5: The competition is stronger for that term

Some terms are held by sites with years of content and links, and a smaller site will not displace them by doing the same things slightly better. The honest check is to look at the domains on page one. If they are national brands, marketplaces or publishers, the term is not the right first target.

That does not mean giving up on the topic. It means choosing the version of the query you can win: adding the suburb or region, the specific service, the specific problem, or the buyer’s situation. A mortgage broker will not rank for “home loans”, and can rank for the questions a first home buyer in a specific area actually asks. The local SEO approach, with a complete Google Business Profile, consistent business details and reviews, also opens the map pack, which sits above the organic results for any query with local intent.

How to improve your position on Google once you are indexed

Pages that sit between positions 5 and 20 are the quickest to move, because Google already rates them as relevant. Work through these in order:

1. Rewrite the title tag and meta description for the query the page actually shows for in Search Console, which is often not the one it was written for.
2. Add the sections the ranking pages have that yours does not, and update the date and content so it is current.
3. Add internal links to the page from your most-visited related pages, with descriptive anchor text.
4. Improve the opening so the answer is stated in the first two or three sentences. Featured snippets and AI Overviews are drawn from pages that do this.
5. Fix any Core Web Vitals or mobile issue flagged for the page.

For a blog post that is not ranking, the same list applies, plus one more: link to it from the service page it supports and from two or three older posts. Blog posts are usually orphaned the day after they are published. Our post on pushing rankings from page two to page one goes deeper on this.

How to improve SEO ranking on WordPress

On WordPress the ranking problems are usually settings and weight rather than content. Check the “Discourage search engines” box is off, set permalinks to the post name, use one SEO plugin and let it manage the sitemap, set tag and date archives to noindex so they do not compete with posts, compress images on upload, and remove plugins and theme features you do not use. A plugin’s green SEO score measures its own checklist, not your ranking, so treat it as a starting point rather than a result.

How long before rankings improve?

Indexing and technical fixes can show within days to weeks of Google recrawling the page. Intent and content fixes take a few months to settle, and authority takes longest, because it depends on other sites. Any fixed promise of a position by a date is a guess, and our post on why SEO guarantees are a warning sign explains why agencies that make them should be avoided.

When to hand this to an agency

Run the first two checks yourself: they take an hour in Search Console and they settle most cases. Hand the problem to an agency when the indexing report shows problems you cannot explain, when Core Web Vitals are failing and the developer cannot say why, when the site has lost rankings it used to have, or when you have fixed intent and content and the pages still do not move after a few months.

The agency should start by reproducing the diagnosis above in your own Search Console and showing you the evidence for which of the five reasons applies. An agency that quotes a content plan or a link package before it has looked at the Pages report is guessing.

Get a free SEO audit

PWD will run the five checks above on your site, in your own Search Console and analytics, and tell you which reason applies and what the fix is. No obligation, no 12 or 24 month lock-in, and all work done in-house from our West Leederville office.

Request a free SEO audit, or call 08 6146 0195.