Why doesn't Google show my site in the results when searching for my exact URL ?

[fryguy]

I haven't done too much work with optimizing the site yet, but I was curious as to why the site doesn't even show up in any of the google results when searching on the exact URL.  What could cause this behavior?

[WilliamKammer]

How old is the website? It's possible it hasn't been indexed yet. If the site is more than a couple months old, then that isn't the issue. For some reason Google isn't indexing your website.

When you say "exact" URL when you search, are you including the ".com" in there? Your URL without the ".com" will pull up other website that rank better than yours. IF that's not the case, there are several other potential causes, including robots tags on the pages, duplicate or thin content, a robots.txt file, etc. If you haven't yet, add your site to Google Webmasters and see if you can gain any insights there.

[fryguy]

Thanks for the response.

It's not a new site, it's been up for almost a year.  Yes, by exact I mean with the .com

I did add it to Google Webmasters not too long ago and nothing seemed to stand out as a problem.  The robots.txt file shows 0 Errors 0 Warnings.  I would have thought adding it to Webmaster would solve the problem of Google not indexing the site.

Also, the site has a 301 permanent re-direct but I haven't read anything that indicating that's a problem.

[WilliamKammer]

So the website itself is being redirected? This has the potential is get it removed from the index.  A 301 redirect tells search engines that the site has moved permanently, which means you're recommending they not index it, since it's not there anymore.

Also make sure to submit a sitemap to Google Webmasters to see if there are any errors there.

[ShaMenz]

Hi fryguy,

A couple of Quick things to check in Google Webmaster Tools:

Index Status: Google Index > Index Status should show you visually whether the site has ever been indexed or not.

Robots.txt tester to check that your robots.txt file is correctly configured.

Fetch as Googlebot Tool to see whether Googlebot is able to successfully crawl your site. You can also use Fetch & Render to see what Google sees on your pages.

Once you get a handle on what might be happening it will be way easier to find a solution

Hope that helps,

Sha

[sachin-sv]

Hey Fryguy,

Apart from above mentioned suggestions, you can try following things as well....

Try this command- "site:www.yoursiteurl.com" (replace www.yoursiteurl.com with your exact url) if it shows no pages, which means it isn't in the index.

If you were already added a while ago then you might want to consider if you have been blacked listed. Has that domain always been yours? If not, there are chances that this domain previously been spammed or had malware. You might want to look into that as it could be a reason why you are not listed.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Fryguy,

You've received some great responses. Did any of them help you sort your issue out? We'd love to hear from you!

Christy