The most common reason that your site does not appear in Google search results is that Google simply doesn't know your website exists. Google automatically "crawls" the web by following links between sites to identify new ones. For each site that Google finds, its software reads the site content and indexes its own cached copy. When people search with Google, they are actually simply searching Google's indexes of all known sites. When a person clicks on a site from the search results, Google displays the actual site (not just its cached copy).
Google returns to each site it knows of, and re-reads their content over time to ensure that its index remains reasonably up to date for future search results. The starting point is always for Google to learn that your site even exists. Google provides a method for you to let it know about your site, so that Google's software visits it and indexes your content for inclusion in its search results.
Site indexing/re-indexing a Sporty domain
If you are using a free Sporty site with a sporty domain name (E.g. www.sporty.co.nz/yourclub) then we can request Google to visit your site to index it for you.
Site indexing/re-indexing a custom domain
If you are are using a custom domain name, you can submit your website's URL to Google to index. This requires you to have a Google account. See https://search.google.com/search-console/about for more information and to request site re-indexing.
As one of the verification methods, you can choose a method to verify ownership. Select HTML tag as your verification method, and copy the portion of the verification code within the quotation marks after content=" as highlighted in the following example:
Leave the Verify Ownership dialogue box open (as you will be coming back to it to complete the verification process shortly) and open a new web browser window with your Sporty site displayed. Login to your Sporty site and click Site Settings in the top right. Choose SEO & Analytics, and then paste the code into the box for Google Site Verification Content. Ensure you click Save.
After you have saved the changes on your Sporty site, go back to the Google Search Console in your other open web browser window and click step 2 - Verify.
Your site will be added to Google's priority crawl queue for indexing.
Search Rankings
Over time, as users visit and use your site, your search rankings will improve. Adding a custom domain, if you are using your free Sporty domain only, will also help improve your website's search ranking as will social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you are interested in learning more, and how we can help you with this, view our SEO Guide.