Why is your Site not Ranked in Google?
One of the most commons questions that people ask me is: Why is my site not ranked in Google?
The answer to this question can be one of a number of things and before I answer it I always need to take a look at the website first. In case you are wondering why your site isn’t ranked in Google, here are 5 of the most common reasons:
Reason One: You have not optimized your website for any keywords – the most common reason for a website not being ranked is that it has not been optimized for anything. Before you build your website you need to spend time deciding what keywords to use AND you need to ensure that these keywords are placed in all the right places on your page. Read more about choosing the right keyword phrase and optimizing your website.
Reason Two: You have chosen keywords that are too competitive - another common reason for not getting ranked in Google is that you have chosen keywords that are way too competitive. This is especially true if your site is relatively new and you have not yet built many links to it. When people search on Google they typically do not go past the first or second page of results. This means that you are better to get ranked on page one for a keyword with 5000 searches per month than you are to get ranked on page 10 for a keyword that gets 100,000 searches per month. Before you choose your keyword check whether or not the keyword is too competitive.
Reason Three: You do not have enough backlinks to your website. The number and quality of links to your website (backlinks) is the main thing that determines where you rank. If you are not ranking for your keyword go to Google and enter your keyword in the search box (no quotes) then take a note of the first 5 domain names listed in the results. Go to a backlink checker tool and check how many backlinks these websites have. Compare this to your own site. This is not an exact science as the quality of the backlinks counts for a lot, but you will get an idea of how many more links you need to make it to the top.
Reason Four: Your site has a number of errors and cannot be crawled. First, it is important to say that most websites have some sort of HTML errors, so don’t get bogged down with fixing all the errors on your site. In general the search engine bots can still crawl your site when there are a few errors, but in some cases an error may stop your page being crawled fully. The best way to determine whether or not this is a problem is to create a Google Webmaster account and verify your site. If there are any crawling errors these will show up in your webmaster account and you should make it your priority to fix them.
Reason Five: You are not being patient enough. It takes time to get a good search engine ranking, especially if your site is new and/or you are aiming for a competitive keyword phrase. Continue to promote your website consistently and check your rankings and your backlinks every 2-4 weeks and this will give you an idea of how much progress you are making. Also take a look at my other post – how long does it take to rank well in the search engines.
Hopefully this will give you some idea of why your site is not ranking in Google yet!
For a full guide on what not to do and how to get your website back into Google download my SEO EBook.
Incoming search terms:- why is my website not ranked by google
- website not ranked
- why is my site not ranked
- why is my site not ranking on google
- why my website is not ranked
- site not ranked by google
- why is my website not ranked on google
Related Posts:
Tagged with: site not ranked in Google
Filed under: SEO Tips
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Hello Suzanne, great article as always. I sure need to check my sites for errors. Thanks, Andrew Gallop
Hi Suzanne. I have a problem getting my inner pages recognised by google when I do a search on my site. I have over 100 backlinks each for the 2 inner pages (which are product pages) and they are each optimised for not so competitive keywords (between 3000-10000). I have submitted a google sitemap twice but it still didn’t do the trick. I guess I have to do it again. It is hard when you haven’t had enough experience and you’re not sure how to fix what are basic errors for other people.
Btw I read your seo book and that is what gave me a good foundation in SEO. I am doing ok with my homepage though.
Hi Chris,
If I go to Google and enter:
site:http://www.mycleansmile.net it shows that there are 160 pages indexed from your site, including your product pages. So Google is recognizing your pages, it may just be that you are not ranked highly for these keywords yet.
Take a look at some competitors for these same phrases to see how many backlinks they have and this will give you a rough idea of what you need to rank for these phrases.
Also, stick at the backlink building, being sure to use your keywords in the anchor text and your work should pay off in the long run!
Cheers,
Suzanne
Hi Suzanne. Thanks for the reply. I agree with your advice.
What I meant was for one of the inner pages it doesn’t show (teethwhitener.php page) and the other one (badbreathremedy.php) is a bit far down the results page and is behind lesser pages. That is what perplexed me. Articles are ranked higher than my inner pages, but I will take heart from what you have said and keep doing the backlink building.
Do you know anyone who is really good at web design for a reasonable price?
Hi Suzzane,
First off, thank you for this wonderful website.
Your post are all very informative and I have learnt a lot especially this post, answered most of my questions i had..
I contacted you throught your contact form on that I have a question on about your post on static homepage for wordpress but could not find the comment box.
I’m eagerly awaiting your reply and help!
Thank you Suzzanne!
why my website <a http://www.palaksoft.com/ is not yet ranked? please suggest.
I have no crawler errors, no html errors, have 2 backlinks, meta tags and keywords are properly placed.
Hi Verma,
One thing that you need to sort out asap is your spam in the TITLE tag – you’ve listed lots and lots of irrelevant keywords. The TITLE tag is meant to contain the 2-3 main keyword phrases for your site and should be limited to around 65 characters. Yours has nearly 1000 characters!
My advice would be to decide the 2-3 keywords that you want to be ranked for and aim for these only.
Also, 2 backlinks is hardly any – you will probably need hundreds, or most likely thousands. Have a look at your competitor’s websites to see how many backlinks they have.
Cheers,
Suzanne
Hi Suzzane,
Thanks alot for this informative article.Will definitely look into these points.I am grateful you have answered most of my questions.
Am looking forward for more information like this.
Thank you.