losing Google page place

[davehurst]

Hi all,
I really need some help here. My website has always been number 2 or 3 for years, over the last few months i have lost my page place for the search phrase "wedding cars wigan" and "wigan wedding cars". I just can't find my site on google organic listings for Wigan. Other pages within my site are aimed at other towns and do come up in the organic listings
i.e search = wedding cars leigh, bingo, my page for Leigh is top of the list.
Now the strange thing is , if i put a search in for wedding cars Liverpool, my home page is 7th. Why doesn't my home page come up for the phrase "wedding cars wigan" anymore but does for "wedding cars Liverpool".

This is driving me insane.
All help appreciated.

[Marincky]

Dave,

You are right at the top of page one for 'wedding cars wigan' under the Google places listings. You will probably have noticed more and more of the Google Business places listings taking over the page one slots on a lot of search terms recently. You should be happy with this as you are more likely to get a click from this to your site than any other listing.

If you should want to boost the organic results up for that phrase just get a few back links in for 'wedding cars wigan'.

[Collectors-info]

A h1 & h2 tag might give some more relevance to the more important phrase/keywords you might be using.

[davehurst]

Thank you Marinky and collectors info, i have put meta tags in and got some good back links ready to go.
Still cant understand why a wedding car search for liverpool shows my main site and it does not show anything in a search for wedding cars wigan, it always used to do.
I know i am position a in local businesses but that can change, what i really want is my page position back for wedding cars wigan.

[davehurst]

Quick question,
Is a sitemap xml required on all pages or ust the index page?.

[davehurst]

I have now moved up to page 1 for the search phrase "wedding cars liverpool" this shows elegance wedding cars wigan. But i am still not on a search phrase for "wedding cars wigan"

Whats going on ?

[Collectors-info]

Quick question,
Is a sitemap xml required on all pages or ust the index page?

You just need to publish 1 site map to the sites public_html folder/directory.

I have now moved up to page 1 for the search phrase "wedding cars liverpool" this shows elegance wedding cars wigan. But i am still not on a search phrase for "wedding cars wigan"

Whats going on ?

Can take quite a few days, if not weeks for rankings to take place. There is a lot of cross referencing takes place by the SE's before a move might be made by the SE's.

[Vasili]

Quick question,
Is a sitemap xml required on all pages or ust the index page?.

Just as you provide a link to your Home page (index) on all pages, so it is important to provide a hard link to the sitemap.xml file on all mapped pages that you deem a priority to be ranked within the site. This helps to identify pages that reflect the navigation priority and which are specifically mapped that have higher relevancy priority.


It often takes up to 45 days for a new site to be first visited and to be ranked, and even during this first visit it is uncommon for all pages to be visited or ranked. This is another reason a sitemap is important, as it provides a clear priority for them to follow without being forced to simply follow links in (non-dynamic) navigation. After the first visit, the cached pages can be viewed at different Search Engines, and if you click on the CACHED PAGE view, the header will also show the date of the visit which can be approximated as the regular cycle assigned, unless the changefreq tag in your sitemap states otherwise.

• The XML format is now supported at least by Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask...
• XML sitemaps are required if you use dynamic links for your articles (JavaScript links).
• Don't use an XML sitemap if all pages of your site are already indexed at Google. (You can verify by typing in the search box site:www.sitexyz.com.)
• If some pages in your website are not indexed yet, give these pages a higher priority in the XML sitemap (the "priority" tag).
• To keep a page ignored by crawlers of search engines you should use a Robots.txt file or the "ROBOTS" meta tag with value noindex and not use a sitemap with page files omitted.
• The sitemap is for the whole site. Don't create a map with only links of files that are not indexed by Google.
• You can omit optional tags (priority, lastmod, changefreq) if you are not sure your need for them.
• The time option (in lastmod tag) is for very big websites! Only date is useful in most cases.
• A sitemap with all pages same higher priority and faster frequency is of null interest for Google. Give to pages the lower priority and the slower frequency if they are already indexed and not frequently changed.
• For videos, a tag has been added to the sitemap protocol. See the tutorial for videos in sitemap from Google.

Because your site has been up for a while and you are concerned with obvious depreciation of rank, you might wish to pay attention to some opportunity to refine some of the sitemap details above and make some changes where necessary (change, create, or delete frequency tags, add video tags, etc.) or add other details to a strategy that may have grown "old": possibly deleting in your sitemap pages already ranked that do not get updated often, creating video tags and titles, adding deeper content --- all prior to inserting or updating a changefreq tag to indicate adding newer and overlooked page values.

By emphasizing newly updated pages and de-prioritizing already ranked and static pages within your sitemap (if proper to use), you may help add the increased values and improve your ranking if used as part of your overall SEO strategy (especially if updating pages includes new or changed META).

more ...

[davehurst]

Chris,
Thank you for the info. What i mean is should there be a link to the sitemap xml on all pages.

[Collectors-info]

Chris,
Thank you for the info. What i mean is should there be a link to the sitemap xml on all pages.

No! Not needed.
Before publishing, it is worth checking the site map to make sure there is no extra pages that are not needed & its what you want to be seen.

[ligiahag7902]

Just as you provide a link to your Home page (index) on all pages, so it is important to provide a hard link to the sitemap.xml file on all mapped pages that you deem a priority to be ranked within the site. This helps to identify pages that reflect the navigation priority and which are specifically mapped that have higher relevancy priority.


It often takes up to 45 days for a new site to be first visited and to be ranked, and even during this first visit it is uncommon for all pages to be visited or ranked. This is another reason a sitemap is important, as it provides a clear priority for them to follow without being forced to simply follow links in (non-dynamic) navigation. After the first visit, the cached pages can be viewed at different Search Engines, and if you click on the CACHED PAGE view, the header will also show the date of the visit which can be approximated as the regular cycle assigned, unless the changefreq tag in your sitemap states otherwise.

• The XML format is now supported at least by Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask...
• XML sitemaps are required if you use dynamic links for your articles (JavaScript links).
• Don't use an XML sitemap if all pages of your site are already indexed at Google. (You can verify by typing in the search box site:www.sitexyz.com.)
• If some pages in your website are not indexed yet, give these pages a higher priority in the XML sitemap (the "priority" tag).
• To keep a page ignored by crawlers of search engines you should use a Robots.txt file or the "ROBOTS" meta tag with value noindex and not use a sitemap with page files omitted.
• The sitemap is for the whole site. Don't create a map with only links of files that are not indexed by Google.
• You can omit optional tags (priority, lastmod, changefreq) if you are not sure your need for them.
• The time option (in lastmod tag) is for very big websites! Only date is useful in most cases.
• A sitemap with all pages same higher priority and faster frequency is of null interest for Google. Give to pages the lower priority and the slower frequency if they are already indexed and not frequently changed.
• For videos, a tag has been added to the sitemap protocol. See the tutorial for videos in sitemap from Google.

Because your site has been up for a while and you are concerned with obvious depreciation of rank, you might wish to pay attention to some opportunity to refine some of the sitemap details above and make some changes where necessary (change, create, or delete frequency tags, add video tags, etc.) or add other details to a strategy that may have grown "old": possibly deleting in your sitemap pages already ranked that do not get updated often, creating video tags and titles, adding deeper content --- all prior to inserting or updating a changefreq tag to indicate adding newer and overlooked page values.

By emphasizing newly updated pages and de-prioritizing already ranked and static pages within your sitemap (if proper to use), you may help add the increased values and improve your ranking if used as part of your overall SEO strategy (especially if updating pages includes new or changed META).

more ...

Thank you for the post. You always share your expertise with the details that are important.