Google's index is now over 30 trillion pages aka 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 so the odds are stacked against someone that doesn't know how SEO works. Google looks at over 100 ranking signals. Even if you address all 100 ranking signals you can still have no traffic if your competition has stronger ranking signals.

30,000,000,000,000,000,000 vs 1 is a scary situation.

We can't say what you are doing wrong since you haven't shared any SEO effort on your part. If you want Google SEO traffic you need to educate yourself (start by reading the threads on WebmasterWorld), then you need to start applying this knowledge and work hard improving your site. Good Luck.

Step 1. Does Google even know you exist?
In Google search type => site:yourwebsitename.com, what does it return?

Do you have Google Search Console account?

To be found on Google your best option is what NickMNS suggests. Create a Google Search Console account and verify your website. Then register a site index file with google so they know where all the important pages of your site are located.

Honestly, 9 years ago I had a private website and it's got a lot of visitors from Google.

Things changed a lot, in 9 years.

Beside what was said above:

- verify that your site is effectively reachable, and not only from your own computer,

- get links from other sites. For example, create a Twitter account, and list your site in your bio, or post a tweet about it,

It's unrelated, but since you are starting a new site, it might be a good idea to start it directly in HTTPS, if it's not yet the case.

@goodroi's post above is key.

A relative of mine came to me about 8 to 10 years ago. He was very disappointed that he put up a website to sell his girl friend's jewelry. He said to me: "I even paid GoDaddy $50 for better search placement."

I sat him down and said "OK - Do a google search for jewelry", which he did. Tens of thousands of results. Then he said "She makes hand made jewelry", so I said OK google hand made jewelry. Again, tens of thousands of results.

Even with good "SEO" the competition is very great, especially on such general topics. Expectations of people seeing a google link is often just a dream. There are so many factors involved that even if google has indexed a site, it doesn't mean it will rank well enough for anyone to ever find it, even if it is on a niche topic. That is one reason many people have found social media the best way to "advertise" a website.

Google has also changed a lot, especially since Panda. Where 9 or 10 years ago a site might have shown up in the first few pages, these days, as @goodroi points out, there are so many listings a site may never see the light of day in a google search even with "good SEO".

Good luck, but I suggest that you keep your expectations realistic.

Last week I was speaking to someone with a similar predicament, and I suggested to them they should, besides the suggestions above, set their expectation much lower.
I asked her why does a small business want/need to be found globally? They don't, was the answer. I suggested they aim for local business and to rank well for in those markets.
They "got it" right away and that's what they are working towards. It really does change the perspective when the expectations and the aim is much lower, especially as they don't need to be found in countries outside of the UK/Ireland, or even beyond their home town.
They are looking at "local [webmasterworld.com]" and the opportunities that brings. Only time will tell how that is going for them.

The world is large. There are a lot of web pages. This popularity contest is stacked against new sites. Do you have a google analytics going? Are you using a CMS? Learn some SEO, write good content, possibly do social media, hope for the best.

Depending what kind of site it is, maybe you’d be better off with a Facebook page? You can do business pages, pages for places, people, books, loads of things. And it will be easier to get traffic to it because you can get active in groups

Am I doing something wrong?

No, its very hard for new sites and although there are as goodroi says millions of sites, unfortunately that is not represented in the results you see on Google. Google implements a trust factor that favours certain sites above all other content. There are still people here that believe "pages" are ranked individually, however that is not the case. Google keeps these site trust factors as a guarded secret but I believe it to include inbound links (scored positively and negatively), time or age of site, popularity, user metrics and then finally the content itself. I am honestly coming to the conclusion that any new site should simply ignore Google SERPS for upto a year from launch.

A small site needs to be a specialist site.

Publishing your views on today's news will go nowhere.
Something very focused on a minority interest (history of pre World War 1 amature football in North London perhaps) can be pushed through specialist forums without seeming spammy and will pick up links from other specialist sites.

I am honestly coming to the conclusion that any new site should simply ignore Google SERPS for upto a year from launch.

I agree, unless you are fortunate enough to have loads of money to throw at Adwords etc or be a multimillion Dollar start-up, competing head-to-head on a global basis is almost a non-starter.

Localisation can be easier however even that will depend on which state and country one is based however doing this successfully could possibly make going-global more successful later on.

nowhere to find at Google

What does “nowhere to find” mean? Is the site literally not indexed, or does it not come up in the top 10 results when you search for {one or two words”? When you’re asking for help or advice, you need to be very specific. Otherwise it’s like going to the doctor and saying only “I don’t feel well”.

If it is not indexed at all, there are a few possible explanations and it should be an easy fix.

Google certainly is important, but what about Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu, Sogou and other search engines? Try your searches on others as well.

What does all this mean?
I need to make some kind of a complex search engine optimization for Google to get a small non business website listed there? Why?
A search with Bing show my website, why not Google?
Seems like everybody is searching Google today and if you aren’t on Google your website don't get visitors.
Maybe I'm wrong but a good search engine like Google should list everything on the internet, no?

Maybe I'm wrong but a good search engine like Google should list everything on the internet, no?

You know what, that's the clearest most succinct observation of Google I have heard for a long time. Google have lost completely the small independent websites and their contribution online. They have become a corporate puppet and it's sad. Users have noticed that's why people "search" on Google but "buy" on Amazon.

Ahem, Google is no "corporate puppet", but the corporate puppet master. Google is so dominant that it seems the rest of the world's search engine, with the exception of China (where they are banned), seem to not matter.

Google is stacking the deck against newer, small web sites, in favour of advertising revenue.

Hail Google!

LOL TorontoBoy "the corporate puppet master" yep thats why they attend the Bilderberg meetings to get there commands every year.

How far down the Rabbit Hole do you want to go TorontoBoy? Blue or Red Pill?

I need to make some kind of a complex search engine optimization for Google to get a small non business website listed there? Why?

No nothing complex.
If you are serious about resolving the issue, you very simply do the steps described in my post above. Site:example.com. Then report back as to what was returned by Google. If this is too complex for you, you may want to consider spending your time doing something else.

if you aren't on Google your website don't get visitors.

Yes, exactly. But first you need to establish whether or not you are "on Google"

Maybe I'm wrong but a good search engine like Google should list everything on the internet, no?

Google pretty much does, and that is exactly your problem. See the first post by Goodroi.

Yes, exactly. But first you need to establish whether or not you are "on Google"

She's on Bing OK, so I think its safe to assume there are no indexing issues here. Just the usual x*#+-y!% from Google towards new sites.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:50 am (utc) on Mar 2, 2018]
[edit reason] Language and topic drift. [/edit]

Moderator note: Please stick to the topic and let's help the member.

I need to make some kind of a complex search engine optimization for Google to get a small non business website listed there?

The important word here is "listed". If, by that, you mean "indexed", you don't need to do any complex SEO, but as others have said, you do have to open a Google Search Console account and submit the site to Google's index. Google won't find it otherwise.

If you want it to show up in search results (other than in searches for the exact name of the site), that is another matter. For that you will have to do some SEO.

If mysmallnonbusinesssite.com is indexed, then a search for mysmallnonbusinesssite.com will find it.

At Google Site:mywebsite.com ZERO RESULTS
Bing Site:mywebsite.com all websites are listed.

From what I understand is, that if I want visitors from Google I need

1. First to educate myself (about Google or what?)
2. Need to create a Google Search Console account
3. Need to get links from other sites (for any reason whatsoever and I don't even know how to do this)
4. Need to create a Twitter account (I never used Twitter and I don't need it)
5. Need ranking signals (whatever that means)
6. Need to register a site index file with Google
7. Need to verify that the site is effectively reachable
8. Need to learn some SEO and write good content
9. Need to do social media

Maybe I forgot to mention something?

And all this I need to do in order to have my own (one) private website on Google search to get some visitors?!

Thanks for your help, but this is too much for me!

@Sandra I understand your frustration. It really comes down to what is your goal with this website is and what your expectations are. If you just want to have the website for the sake of a having a website, then you can safely and simply do nothing. But you need to moderate your expectations. Eventually Google will find you and rank you, but you are unlikely to get much traffic from Google. Now if you expect that your going to be getting hundreds of people a day to your website, and that is your goal then you will need to consider the points you laid out. Even then, you may not achieve that goal.

I recommend the following based on your response:

At Google Site:mywebsite.com ZERO RESULTS
Bing Site:mywebsite.com all websites are listed.

This may suggest a technical issue or simply that Google hasn't found your site yet. The latter is easily solved. Sign up for Search Console Account, it is free, it is simple and it can provide essential insight into possible issues with you site. You don't need to go to the account on a daily basis or even weekly. But with it established, you can check in every now and then to be sure that everything is in order from Google's perspective. For example, you can see if your site has been hacked. So this is a very valuable tool to have.

Once signed up you can submit your pages directly to Google to be crawled and indexed. At which point you will see if there is technical issue or not.

All the other stuff is only really necessary if you want to actively promote and grow your site. Otherwise, with time your site will find its place in the rankings.

All of the above, but if you are indexed AND listing in BING, then g does not consider your present content sufficient to list AMONG THE ZILLION OTHER CHOICES already in their index.

5 months is not long enough for G. 18 months is a more reasonable figure.

If your hobby is popular, your competition is eating your lunch. You have to be better than them (and that's what SEO "content" means). Unique either in presentation or commentary.

Bear in mind that getting a G search console account is NO GUARANTEE that anything will change. However, if you are NOT LISTED that probably means g has not found you, or your host is a known bad neighborhood and you got the three strikes before you got started.

Wishing all the best!

As I asked you before, are you using a content management system such as Wordpress? What tools are you using to build and display your web site?

Certain content management systems have plugins that make SEO much simpler. You could save yourself a lot of time and trouble using such tools and plugins.

At Google Site:mywebsite.com ZERO RESULTS

Pick a few phrases from your site and do an exact-text search (quotation marks, or "this exact word or phrase" in Advanced Search). Does your site come up?

If no: Look at your site logs. Not analytics or stats or anything else: the raw logs. Has the Googlebot been crawling? Does it request anything other than robots.txt? If yes, what response (200, 30x, 404, 403) does it get?

This thread has been going on for a while, but I've yet to see solid answers to the twin questions: Is the site indexed on Google? and Has it been crawled by Google?

Slightly off topic but advice was given earlier in the thread to do social. I started a twitter site last week and got 100 followers in that time. A few of my tweets went viral bringing in 10,000 to 20,000 impressions with only 2 or 3 "influencer retweets". There's a "system" to it that you can learn.

... I too was doing SEO 9 (and 13) years ago when it WAS a lot easier. Experiment with social, that's probably some good advice.