What could be causing my Webflow site to not be indexed by Google, despite following the guidelines and everything appearing to be in order?

If your Webflow site isn’t being indexed by Google, even after following SEO best practices, several technical or configuration-related issues could be causing the problem.

1. Check Search Engine Indexing Settings

• Go to Project Settings > SEO tab in Webflow.
• Make sure “Disable Webflow subdomain indexing” is turned on, but “Disable indexing by search engines” is off.
• If indexing is disabled, Google can’t crawl your site—turn it off for live production sites.

2. Look for robots.txt Restrictions

• Webflow auto-generates a robots.txt file, but if you’ve added a custom version under SEO settings, make sure it doesn’t have:
• Disallow: / (blocks entire site)
• Disallow: /folder-name/ blocking key paths
• Use https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt to check what’s visible to bots.

3. Validate canonical tags

• Webflow adds canonical tags automatically, but if you’re using custom code or manual overrides, verify:
• They are not pointing to the wrong URL
• There are no conflicting or empty canonical tags, which could confuse crawlers

4. Ensure Your Site Is Published to the Custom Domain

• Some users only publish to the Webflow.io subdomain.
• Publish to your actual custom domain, then connect it properly under Project Settings > Hosting tab.
• Use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool to see what Google sees—enter your live URL.

5. Check Google Search Console Coverage Reports

• In Google Search Console, go to Coverage:
• Look for Excluded pages with reasons like “Crawled – currently not indexed” or “Duplicate without user-selected canonical.”
• Use the URL Inspection Tool to test and request indexing.

6. Inspect Site Structure and Internal Linking

• Pages that aren’t linked internally or only accessible via JavaScript interactions may get skipped.
• Ensure all pages have crawlable links and are included in your sitemap.

7. Verify and Submit Your Sitemap

• Webflow auto-generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml if enabled.
• Go to SEO tab > Sitemap Settings, ensure "Enable Sitemap" is turned on.
• Submit this sitemap in Google Search Console > Sitemaps.

8. Check for Manual Actions or Penalties

• In Google Search Console, visit the Manual Actions section.
• If your site has a penalty, it will be explicitly mentioned here.

9. Use the Inspect Element Tool for Noindex Tags

• Open your published page in Chrome.
• Right-click > View Page Source and search for “noindex”.
• Ensure there’s no <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag that might block indexing.

Summary

Your Webflow site may not be getting indexed due to disabled indexing settings, restrictive robots.txt rules, misconfigured canonical tags, missing internal links, lack of domain publishing, or issues flagged in Search Console. Start by verifying settings in your SEO tab, then use Google Search Console tools to identify and resolve specific page-level issues.