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Indexed but invisible in Google SERP — could my domain’s history be the issue?
Posted by on September 27, 2025 at 7:48 amHey folks,
I’m scratching my head over something I’ve never seen before.I launched a brand-new website on a new domain, everything looks solid:
- Indexed in Google (shows up with
site:domain). - No errors in Search Console.
- Sitemap and robots.txt are clean.
Here’s the strange part: the site refuses to appear in SERPs for even the most basic branded queries. Not ranking for generic terms is one thing, but not showing up at all for my own company name (let’s call it Octigen GmbH)? That feels really odd.
Now, here’s the twist: this domain used to belong to a completely different company (also called Octigen) that went bust years ago. Old links still exist in forums, ecommerce sites, etc. I’m wondering if the domain’s past life could be holding it back — like a reputation penalty or some kind of lingering Google baggage.
Has anyone here run into something like this?
- Can an old domain history actively suppress visibility, even if it’s re-verified, re-indexed, and fully rebuilt?
- Is there a way to “reset” a domain’s reputation, or am I better off cutting losses and starting fresh?
Curious to hear if this rings any bells — I feel like I’m missing something obvious, or maybe I’ve stumbled into a rare edge case.
- Indexed in Google (shows up with
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1 Reply
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Sometimes it just takes a lot of time for the old state of a domain to be shaken off (sometimes that’s also the case when it was parked for a while), and the site to be treated like something new / independent. There’s nothing manual that you can / need to do here. I would double-check in Search Console to make sure that there are no URL removal requests pending, and that there’s nothing in the manual actions section, but I’m guessing you already did that.
My suggestion for you specificially would be to keep using it, and to try to grow your visibility on other channels in the meantime. For example, it looks like you’re findable via your Linkedin page, which links to your domain name. If you’re active on LInkedin, and using that wisely to reference your domain, users can find it that way. Similarly, you could be active in other places, such as YouTube or other social media sites (The YT video for your company name is currently on a private profile, which can be ok, but which you could also do on a company-branded profile. Or, of course, a Reddit profile) In short, make it easy for people to find your content regardless of location when they search for it, especially for your company name. From there, expanding to the kinds of searches that could lead users who don’t yet know your company to your content, would be the next step — and even there it’s useful to be active on various platforms. Good luck with your app, and greetings from a neighboring city 🙂
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What happens when you do the site:mydomain trick?
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