Did your website “disappear” from Google search? If your personal brand, portfolio, or small business site used to rank for brand name, but is no longer visible on Google—yet is visible on Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo—you are not alone.
This article addresses a specific, long-standing problem that affects legitimate personal brand and small business sites. The sites below ranked for branded searches, then for all practical purposes abruptly disappeared from Google search. These sites did not experience a drop in Google rankings or get deindexed—they simply no longer surfaced in Google’s SERPs.
If your website “vanished from Google,” it can seem as if the site disappeared from the internet altogether. However, it’s likely still visible on other search engines.
The good news: Sites can recover and regain usual positioning—sometimes within a day—even when they’ve been missing from Google SERPs for a year or more.
Important: The very specific issue outlined below doesn’t stem from the usual factors blamed in other SEO articles: new site, manual penalties, security problems, URL removals, noindex directives, low-quality content, robots.txt issues, generic brand name, algorithm update, etc.
In 2019, we experienced a number of requests on this issue in quick succession, which brought it to our attention as a tangible, documentable problem. As of 2024, site owners still report this Google search issue.
Note: If a new website is not showing up on Google, you need to allow time for Google to crawl the site. This said, when built and launched correctly, almost any new site should be findable for brand name or personal name within a week or two. If you are struggling with a new site or an algorithmic traffic drop, schedule an SEO consultation.
Affected Sites Share These Traits
Several years ago, a pattern emerged when we received multiple requests related to “why did my website disappear from Google” and “my Squarespace site disappeared.” Each of the sites had ranked for their personal name or brand for years, but now the sites couldn’t be found for brand name searches. Surfacing at the top of Google should not have required any intervention and the sites deserved to rank. Commonalities include:
Domain active for years. The individual or business is well-established in their field. Site represents the expected, trustworthy, relevant result when searching for the person or brand. UPDATE: We’ve now seen newer domains encounter this issue, but new site owners without search experience tend to assume their struggle is a “normal” part of the SEO learning process—it is not.
Site is in Google’s index as expected. site:example.com
Site historically ranked in Google (usually position one) for a branded search, but then experienced a sudden disappearance from Google search.
Site missing ONLY from Google search results. Sites continue to rank for brand queries on other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo.
Common, broad-stroke SEO answers do not apply. Manual penalties, security issues, URL removals, pages marked noindex, robots.txt, etc. are not factors.
Portfolio site or personal brand website. Portfolio sites often have minimal text and the usual SEO advice given to image-oriented sites by forum “experts” and well-meaning friends includes “add more content,” but more text is not needed.
Update: The issue also impacts small businesses, but business sites are often professionally maintained, and this alone could keep the problem at bay or the issue might be so short-lived that it goes undetected. And if URLs on a site rank well for non-branded searches, brand search issues might go undetected. If a small business is asking why their “homepage is not ranking for brand name,” yet their site surfaces on search engines other than Google, consider the issue outlined here.
Site hosted on Squarespace with no previous issues. Update: Since first writing this article, sites built on other platforms have turned up. Creatives and small businesses often opt for the Squarespace platform, which likely explains the greater number of “my Squarespace site disappeared from Google” complaints.
Why do sites disappear from Google search?
The site owners are not to blame. They’d built simple sites that historically performed well for branded searches. After realizing there was a problem, the DIY site owners attempted to sort through common SEO advice found on checklists and forums. But the guidance they received—write more content, optimize images, give it time, etc—wasn’t necessary or effective. These factors are not why the sites went missing from Google search.
Note, forum advice is often well-intentioned but can be wildly inaccurate. If you are struggling with SEO issues, learn how to find an experienced SEO.
Initially, we assumed the issue was due to Google’s known indexing problems in 2019 because the timing of the requests aligned. However, later cases disproved this theory.
Squarespace is less transparent regarding platform problems. That said, after writing this article, we’ve heard from sites built on platforms other than Squarespace, meaning the problem seems to be squarely in Google’s corner.
Each time we thought we identified a possible cause, a new case challenged our assumptions. While the exact cause might be unclear, the issue is fixable.
Outcome: The Problem is 100% Fixable
While we never guarantee outcomes, we’ve assured site owners: “By all normal measures your site should be visible on Google for your brand name—regardless of website platform, template choice, subpar site structure, or sparse text.”
All sites we’ve helped resumed normal and expected ranking position in Google search. That said, our involvement should not have been necessary for these long-established sites to remain visible or regain visibility. Unfortunately for these sites, Google—and only Google—required human intervention.
What not to do? Don’t assume it will work itself out. Many people report their site was missing from Google for months or even years.
What to do? Reviewing Google’s documentation on related issues can be helpful for DIY solutions. However, if your efforts to resolve the problem haven’t been successful, we offer a nuanced, experienced approach to addressing the issue.
Examples of Excluded Sites
All sites we’ve assisted resumed normal and expected ranking position in Google search. See examples below, dates indicate when we worked with the website owner:
February 2020: Liz Markus (artist)
March 2020: Jo Carkner (production designer)
July 2020: Steven Yavanian (landscape architect). This request played a key role in our decision to document the similarities among affected sites. At the time, we found two more sites matching the exact profile asking for help in forums, both long-time professional photographers.
January 2021: Field Kallop (artist). The site owner reported the site was missing from Google search for a year: “I tried re-indexing my site and doing a few other things suggested by the SEO optimization tutorials on Squarespace, but nothing has worked. I would like some help fixing this so that people interested in my work can find my site more easily.”
June 2021: Jesse Heath (filmmaker). The site owner reported the site was dropped from Google SERPs in July 2020 and remained missing until we worked together a year later. The advice given in Squarespace forums was to “add more text,” but word count is irrelevant for SEO. This site demonstrates that, for branded searches, factors like “more copy” or standard SEO and UX recommendations aren’t required.
July 2021: August D'Angelo (screenwriter). This site was built on Squarespace 7.1 and was newer than other examples (launched early 2020). Without a successful track record in search or a known “brand name,” the site owner didn’t have the same conviction as others that his personal site should be findable.
September 2021: Nina Djacic (director of photography)
June 2022: Nancy Pollock (fiber artist)
January 2023: Marlena Maduro Baraf (author). This site was of particular interest because it is a site we actually built back in 2016. The issue came to our attention when we attempted to reference the site during a training call. This example demonstrated that the Google issue is not due to a site migration, a redesign, stagnation, or implementing SSL.
As of 2024, we continue to regularly hear from small sites facing the obscure issue.
Other Impacted Sites
There are other small businesses and individuals still missing out on Google visibility due to this issue. Why? Some site owners simply do not realize their brand vanished from search. And others give up out of sheer frustration.
Most of the site owners we’ve helped knew, without a shadow of doubt, that they should be searchable and findable. But less experienced creatives or new businesses may not push for an answer if they lack the same certainty about their name recognition or brand reputation.
When we first wrote this article, quick forum searches turned up even more sites. We researched each one and all matched the criteria outlined above, some examples:
An illustrator was missing from Google SERPs for at least 3 years: “Squarespace website missing from only Google results.”
A production designer said: “Domain not appearing on Google search but first result on Bing and Yahoo.”
A fine art photographer asked: “My website disappeared from Google search.”
A graphic designer asked: “Why has my website stopped appearing on Google search results?”
A small business outside the creative realm also was impacted: “Website shows in site: but not in Google search results.” Again, it is likely that the issue affects all types of sites, but for reasons listed above, businesses might not notice it as often.
What to do?
If your site lost visibility or stopped appearing on Google, start with Google Support documentation. And if your site is on Squarespace, refer to the resources below:
Did your site “disappear” from Google?
“I spoke to multiple experts and none of them could help me. My website had gone from being number one on a Google search to nonexistent seemingly for no reason whatsoever. All of the suggestions I received from other SEOs involved me butchering the aesthetic of my website which just wasn’t worth it to me. Then I found Christine. She’s like an SEO detective ... About a week after working together my website was back to being the top result on a search of my name. I can’t recommend Christine enough.”
