Why isn't my business showing up on Google?
The short answer: probably not because your website is broken.
We measure every business in 34 Local Digital Visibility Indices against twelve searches its own customers would plausibly use. 636 of 1371 appear nowhere in the first hundred results for any of them. Those businesses score the same as everyone else on speed (65 against 64), technical foundation (75 against 88) and content (35 against 49).
They have competent websites that nobody arrives at. If that is you, the useful question is not what is wrong with my site but which of the four things below is happening.
Every figure here is computed from the published data when this page is built.
1. The first page does not belong to businesses like yours
Section titled “1. The first page does not belong to businesses like yours”This is the most common cause and the least discussed.
Across the sectors we measure, local firms hold only 38.1% of the first-page slots for their own sector’s searches. The rest belong to directories, national chains and comparison sites.
| Sector | First-page slots held by local firms | Who holds the rest |
|---|---|---|
| Cheltenham Construction | 10 of 120 (8.3%) | fmb.org.uk, checkatrade.com |
| Gloucester Construction | 11 of 120 (9.2%) | checkatrade.com, fmb.org.uk |
| Gloucester Restaurant | 11 of 120 (9.2%) | tripadvisor.co.uk, visitgloucester.co.uk |
| Worcester Construction | 13 of 120 (10.8%) | fmb.org.uk, checkatrade.com |
| Bristol Dentist | 15 of 120 (12.5%) | nhs.uk, bupa.co.uk |
| Cheltenham Law Firm | 25 of 120 (20.8%) | tanners.co.uk, reviewsolicitors.co.uk |
| Bristol Architect | 32 of 120 (26.7%) | abcplans.co.uk, barefootarchitects.co.uk |
| Bath Vet | 35 of 120 (29.2%) | cvsvets.com, rcvs.org.uk |
| Exeter Solicitor | 35 of 120 (29.2%) | reviewsolicitors.co.uk, rundlewalker.com |
| Swindon Physiotherapy | 37 of 120 (30.8%) | swindonsportstherapy.co.uk, nhs.uk |
| Bristol Physiotherapy | 38 of 120 (31.7%) | bristolphysiotherapyclinic.co.uk, bupa.co.uk |
| Bristol Estate Agent | 39 of 120 (32.5%) | rightmove.co.uk, thelettinggame.co.uk |
| Gloucester Architect | 39 of 120 (32.5%) | checkatrade.com, aurahomes.co.uk |
| Bath Estate Agent | 45 of 120 (37.5%) | carterjonas.co.uk, getagent.co.uk |
| Exeter Vet | 45 of 120 (37.5%) | cvsvets.com, ivc.co.uk |
| Worcester Physiotherapy | 45 of 120 (37.5%) | nhs.uk, worcester.ac.uk |
| Bath Architect | 48 of 120 (40%) | aurahomes.co.uk, houzz.co.uk |
| Gloucester Physiotherapy | 48 of 120 (40%) | nhs.uk, ramsayhealth.co.uk |
| Swindon Architect | 48 of 120 (40%) | checkatrade.com, houzz.co.uk |
| Swindon Estate Agent | 48 of 120 (40%) | milesbyron.com, swindonhomefinders.com |
| Gloucester Accountant | 49 of 120 (40.8%) | knightsgroup.co.uk, freeagent.com |
| Cheltenham Physiotherapy | 51 of 120 (42.5%) | cheltenhamphysiotherapy.co.uk, straightbackphysio.co.uk |
| Worcester Architect | 51 of 120 (42.5%) | houzz.co.uk, matthewgullick.com |
| Bath Physiotherapy | 56 of 120 (46.7%) | circlehealthgroup.co.uk, bupa.co.uk |
| Exeter Physiotherapy | 56 of 120 (46.7%) | nhs.uk, exeterphysio.co.uk |
| Bristol Vet | 58 of 120 (48.3%) | langfordvets.co.uk, cvsvets.com |
| Cheltenham Vet | 60 of 120 (50%) | cvsvets.com, eastcottreferrals.co.uk |
| Cheltenham Architect | 65 of 120 (54.2%) | kodaarchitects.com, ashleighclarkearchitects.com |
| Worcester Vet | 66 of 120 (55%) | rcvs.org.uk, vets-now.com |
| Exeter Architect | 70 of 120 (58.3%) | hmad.co.uk, mybuilder.com |
| Bristol Double Glazing | 74 of 120 (61.7%) | checkatrade.com, reddit.com |
| Gloucester Vet | 74 of 120 (61.7%) | ledburyvets.co.uk, eastcottreferrals.co.uk |
| Gloucestershire Double Glazing | 76 of 120 (63.3%) | checkatrade.com, dunravenwindows.com |
| Swindon Vet | 83 of 120 (69.2%) | vets4pets.com, ivc.co.uk |
In Cheltenham Construction, local businesses hold 8.3% of their own first page.
What this means for you. If most of page one is Yell, a comparison site and two national brands, then “rank higher for [your trade] [your town]” is advice to enter a contest you are largely excluded from. The realistic target is a narrower, more specific search where those competitors have nothing relevant — the particular service, the particular neighbourhood, the particular problem.
2. There is nothing on your site to rank
Section titled “2. There is nothing on your site to rank”The median business we measure scores 49 out of 100 on content, and only 579 of 1221 whose homepage we could read publish a blog, news or insights section at all.
A search engine can only match a page against a search if the page exists and says something. A five-page site describing services in two sentences each gives it almost nothing to work with — and gives an AI assistant nothing to quote.
How to tell if this is you. Search for a specific question a customer asks you on the phone. If you have no page that answers it, that is the gap.
3. Your site is genuinely blocked or broken
Section titled “3. Your site is genuinely blocked or broken”Rarer, but it happens and it is absolute. Of the businesses we measure, 194 have a robots.txt file telling search engines not to index the site at all. No amount of other work matters until that changes.
How to tell. Visit yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt. If you see Disallow: / under User-agent: *, that is it. Your scorecard flags this as a critical problem if we found it on your site.
4. You are findable, just not where you are looking
Section titled “4. You are findable, just not where you are looking”Ranking is measured per search. A business can be invisible for the obvious head term and doing perfectly well on a dozen specific ones — or be strong in the map results and absent from the ordinary list, which are different systems.
How to tell. Look at your scorecard’s keyword table. It shows every search we tested and exactly where you came, including the ones you are close on.
What we would not tell you to do
Section titled “What we would not tell you to do”Make the site faster. Speed correlates −0.09 with whether a business can be found in this data — a fifth of our own score, predicting nothing. We published that against our own interest, and separately found the lab score most audits quote is a median 7× worse than what real visitors experience.
Buy links. Backlink authority does track findability in our data, but it is a summary of who already links to you — a symptom of being worth linking to, not a lever to pull.
Blame your trade or your town. Both together explain about a seventh of the difference between businesses. The rest is between you and the firm down the road doing the same job in the same place.
Find out which case you are in
Section titled “Find out which case you are in”If your business is in one of the 34 indices, your scorecard names the specific faults on your site, shows every search we tested and where you came, and lists what it would take to move. It is free and there is nothing to fill in.
If your sector is not measured yet, the methodology is public and the pipeline is open source, so the same tests can be run against any business by anyone.