There isn't always a simple solution if a website is not yet included in (indexed by) search engines. There are a few exceptions a SEO must be able to tackle. Sometimes, however, webmasters think a website is not indexed by search engines although it is. They possibly don't find their website when they search with certain keywords, or the ranking simply deteriorated significantly. Therefore, the first thing SEOs do is to check for false positives and use search engine specific commands, to verify the website really is not indexed.

For the most popular search engines the command is the following:

      site:YourDomain.com

If the above query returns results the website is indexed and there is no indexing problem. Then it's probably the case that the website is just not optimized well enough or relevant enough to be found with certain keywords.

If the above query doesn't return results the website is not indexed and the SEO starts investigating. At this point it's important to know whether the website is new, or whether it has been already online for some time.

If the website is new the SEO needs to find out whether there have been attempts to attain search engine inclusion or not. There are two ways for a SEO to get a website indexed. One is to link to the new website from a website that is already indexed. Another one is to submit the website to search engines manually.

If there haven't been attempts to attain inclusion the SEO goes on to decide which of the options described above is most suitable. Linking from an indexed website and letting the engines find the website themselves is always the better choice because it saves work and links are important for the ranking anyways. Manual submission to search engines should be an exception.

If there have been attempts to attain inclusion the SEO will look for possible barriers. The following matters will be checked:

- was the inclusion attempt processed correctly?
- has sufficient amount of time passed?
- are there any technical barriers?
- has the domain been used for SPAM from the current or previous owner?

If the SEO has found any indexing barriers there can be a new attempt after the barriers have been removed.

The above refers to "new" websites. Older websites at some point may also have the problem of not being included in search engines if there are technical problems, or if the domain is used for SPAM.