Is my website hidden from Google by mistake?

Short answer: a site built on a staging setup often launches with "don't index me" still switched on: a noindex tag, a robots.txt that blocks everything, or a canonical link pointing at the old address. The site works perfectly, but Google is told not to list it.

How to check it yourself

1. View your homepage's source and search for noindex in a <meta name="robots"> tag.
2. Check the response headers for X-Robots-Tag: noindex (developer tools, Network tab, the first request).
3. Open /robots.txt and look for Disallow: / under User-agent: *.
4. Find <link rel="canonical"> in the source and make sure it points at your live address.
5. In WordPress, check Settings, then Reading, then "Discourage search engines".

What Preventionlabs shows

Every report checks whether search engines are allowed to list your homepage: noindex left on (in the page or its headers), robots.txt blocks and canonical links pointing elsewhere. It also checks up to 50 pages from your sitemap for ones set to noindex, failing or redirecting.

It checks whether Google is allowed to list you, not how you rank.

Price

First report free, no card needed. Then A$50 a month, up to 10 domains.

Run your first report free