Why your Wix site isn't showing up on Google

The most likely reason depends on how old the site is. If you published in the last few weeks, Google probably hasn't crawled it yet. Google says "It can take a few weeks for Google to notice a new site", and that applies to every website, not only Wix. The fix is to connect Google Search Console through Wix's SEO Setup Checklist, which submits your sitemap, and then wait.

If the site has been live for longer, the usual cause is a setting: the site or page isn't published, or the "Let search engines index your site" switch is off. Go to SEO & GEO → Tools and settings → SEO Settings in your dashboard and make sure that switch is enabled.

Before changing anything, run one test. Type site:yourdomain.com into Google, using your own domain. If pages are listed, your site is indexed, and what you have is a ranking problem. If nothing is listed, work through the checks below in order.

Step 1: find out whether you have an indexing problem or a ranking problem

Indexing means Google has stored a copy of your page and can show it in results. Ranking is where the page appears for a given search. The two are easy to confuse, and they have different fixes.

1. Search Google for site:yourdomain.com.
2. If you see your pages, the site is indexed. Wix calls this "a ranking issue rather than an indexing issue."
3. If you see some pages but not the one you care about, search for that page's exact URL with site: in front of it.
4. If you see nothing, the site is not indexed. Continue with Step 2.

A common version of the ranking problem: you search for a broad phrase such as "plumber" and don't see your site. A new site will not rank for broad terms straight away. Search for your exact business name first. If that works, indexing is fine, and the work ahead is SEO. Our Wix SEO checklist is the place to start.

Step 2: make sure the site and the page are published

Search engines only see your live site. Wix's troubleshooting guide puts this first: pages you created, or edits you made, after the last time you clicked Publish are not visible to search engines.

• Open the editor and click Publish.
• Visit the live URL in a private browser window and confirm that the page loads without asking you to log in.
• Check that the page wasn't deleted by accident. Site History can restore earlier versions of a site, though Wix notes it does not restore items such as Wix Stores products.

Step 3: check the three indexing switches

Wix lets you block search engines at three levels. A block at any level keeps the page out of Google.

The site-level switch is the one that causes the most trouble. Wix describes it as a way to "prevent search engines from crawling and indexing your site if you're not ready to go public", so it is sometimes turned off during a build and forgotten at launch. When it is off, the page-type and page-level options are disabled as well. Wix's article on enabling search engines to index your site shows the switch.

Step 4: rule out the less obvious blockers

If the switches are all on, Wix's checklist for a missing page continues with these:

• Password protection and members-only pages. Neither is crawled or indexed. Remove the restriction if the page should be public.
• A stray redirect. If the page's URL is redirected somewhere else, Google follows the redirect. Check SEO & GEO → Tools and settings → URL Redirect Manager.
• A wrong canonical tag. A canonical tag tells Google which URL is the main version of a page. If it was edited to point at a different page, Google may index that page instead. Open the page's SEO Basics, go to the Advanced SEO tab, find the canonical under Additional Tags, click Edit and choose Reset to Default. More in canonical tags and duplicate content on Wix.
• robots.txt. This file tells crawlers which parts of a site they may visit. Wix generates it for you. If someone edited it in the Robots.txt Editor, it can be reset to default. See Wix sitemap and robots.txt.
• Thin content. A page with very little on it can be treated as a "soft 404", meaning Google sees it as empty. Wix recommends "at least 250-400 words on the page."
• No internal links. If no other page on your site links to the page, crawlers have a harder time finding it. Add it to your menu or link to it from a related page.
• Automatic language redirects. On a multilingual site, Wix notes that automatic redirects can stop Googlebot, which usually crawls from the USA, from finding the other language versions.

Step 5: connect Google Search Console

Google Search Console is Google's free tool that shows which of your pages are indexed and why others are not. It is the only way to see Google's own reason for leaving a page out.

The quickest route on Wix is the SEO Setup Checklist. Wix states that "To connect to Google Search Console, you must have a Premium plan and a domain connected to your site."

1. Go to SEO & GEO → Tools and settings → SEO Setup Checklist and click Get Started.
2. Answer the setup questions about your business name, location and keywords.
3. Complete the step that connects your site to Google. This verifies the site and submits your sitemap. After that, the sitemap updates automatically.
4. For a page you want checked first, open Search Console, paste the full URL into the search bar at the top, and click Request Indexing.

Requesting indexing puts the page in Google's queue; it does not force it into results. Google's guide to asking Google to recrawl says requesting a crawl "does not guarantee that inclusion in search results will happen instantly or even at all", and that asking repeatedly for the same URL won't speed it up. If the connection fails or you'd rather verify by hand, our guide to connecting Wix to Google Search Console covers both routes.

Once connected, Wix's Site Inspection tool, in the same Tools and settings list, shows the index status Google reports for each page.

What if you're on the free plan

A free Wix site can be indexed. Wix states: "We guarantee that all of your site content can be crawled and indexed by search engines (e.g. Google and Bing) whether your site is upgraded or not."

What the free plan lacks are the tools that speed things up and help you diagnose problems. Connecting Search Console from Wix needs a Premium plan and a connected domain. IndexNow, which Wix uses to tell Bing and some other search engines about changed pages automatically, is "only available for sites with a Premium plan." Our guide to the free Wix plan covers the other limits.

How long indexing takes

There is no fixed answer, and no one can promise one. Here is what Wix and Google say:

Pages that are left out on purpose

Not every page is meant to be in Google. Wix says search engines do not guarantee indexing every page of a site, and calls that "perfectly normal in many cases." Wix also keeps some pages out by default:

• Blog tag pages and blog archive pages.
• Member profile pages.
• Some pages added by apps, such as form pages and calendar pages.

Seeing these listed as not indexed in a report is expected and doesn't need fixing.

Reading the two Search Console statuses Wix owners ask about

"Crawled - currently not indexed"

Google visited the page and chose not to index it for now. Wix says this is not an error and that resubmitting isn't necessary, though you can request indexing. In practice it often points to a page that is thin or very similar to another page. Improve the content and add internal links to it.

"Submitted URL marked 'noindex'"

Your sitemap lists a page that carries a noindex tag. Check the URL, the index toggles, password protection and members-only status. Wix adds that if the sitemap's "Last read" date is over a month old, the error is probably out of date.

If your site used to appear and has disappeared

A site that drops out of Google completely is a different problem from a new site waiting its turn. Wix's guidance is to fix any issues, confirm that crawlers aren't blocked in robots.txt, and check Search Console for a manual action, which is a penalty applied by a Google reviewer. If there is one, you can request a reconsideration review after fixing the cause; Wix says that takes "several days or weeks." Afterward, the Bot Traffic and Response Status reports in Wix Analytics show whether Google's crawler is visiting again.

If the site is still indexed but visits have fallen, see why traffic dropped on your Wix site.

Conclusion

Most Wix sites that are missing from Google are either too new to have been crawled or blocked by a setting: not published, or an indexing switch turned off at the site, page-type or page level. Run the site: search, check the switches, connect Search Console and give Google a few weeks. If the site is indexed and still hard to find, the work shifts from indexing to SEO, and a structured review such as our guide on how to audit a Wix site for SEO is the next step. If you'd like someone to find the cause for you, our SEO audit services cover Wix sites. More guides are in our Wix hub.

Frequently asked questions