Hey everyone, it’s Rikki here! I like to write blogs based on real questions from our clients. Recently, we launched two brand-new websites on fresh domains. Everything about the design, development, and launch went smoothly, but once the sites were live, both clients asked the same question: “Why can’t I find my site on Google yet? Launching a new website is exciting. After weeks (sometimes months) of planning and building, the site is finally live. Naturally, the next step is to open Google, type in one of your main keywords, and expect to see your business right at the top. But here’s the reality: search engines don’t work like flipping a light switch. It’s completely normal (although frustrating) for brand-new websites to take time before appearing in Google search results . How Google Finds and Ranks Websites When your new site goes live, Google has to: Crawl – Send its “bots” to scan and read the site. Index – Store those pages in Google’s database. Rank – Decide where your site belongs in the search results compared to competitors. Submitting a sitemap and setting up Google Search Console helps Google know your site exists. But discovery doesn’t mean instant visibility; it just means the process has started.