When search engines can’t read your site.

What we found.

Inside one established firm’s own setup, the website looked complete to anyone visiting it, and nearly invisible to search engines.⁠Note 1

1. One firm, not named. We walk through what we found and how it was fixed, privately, on request.

Three things worked together. Every page told search engines that its true address was the home page. The menu was built from buttons rather than links, so there was nothing for a search engine to follow. And an address that did not exist still answered as if it did.

Each of these is a small piece of code. Together they meant a site of many pages was read as one.

How to check yours.

1. 01

   Open any page on your site other than the home page. Right-click an empty part of the page and choose View page source.

2. 02

   Press Ctrl and F together and search for the word canonical. The address that follows should be this same page’s address. If it is your home page’s address, the page is asking search engines to treat it as the home page.⁠Note 2

3. 03

   Search Google for site: followed by your domain, for example site:yourfirm.com. The results should include your inner pages. If you see only the home page, or only a few, something is keeping the rest out.

4. 04

   Right-click an item in your site’s menu. If you are offered Open link in new tab, it is a link. If not, a search engine may not be able to follow it.

1. Google describes this line as a strong signal of which address to show in search results, not a rule it must follow. Source: Google Search Central, “Consolidate duplicate URLs”, read 26 October 2026.

What to do about it.

Each page should name itself as its own address, the menu should use real links, and an address that doesn’t exist should say so. These are short jobs for whoever looks after your site. The hard part is noticing.

Once they are fixed, ask Google to read the site again through Google Search Console.

Who wrote this.

Daniel Levine, Principal. Written on 26 October 2026 and reviewed before publishing.⁠Note 3 Corrections: none.

1. If something here turns out to be wrong, the correction is listed on this page with its date.