Member Avatar for AffineMesh

I have two pages indexed by Google. I'll call them New Page and Old Page for the purpose of this question.

Google prefers to show Old Page on in search results, possibly because it contains a couple more occurences of the keyword 'Page'.

I'd like to use a sitemap to tell Google that Old Page is less important than New Page. Searches for 'Page' should return New Page, unless someone specifically asks for Old Page.

What do you feel would be a sensible level of priority for Old Page in the sitemap, and how long should I wait for Google to respond to such changes?

Edited by AffineMesh because: Typo.
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A short, practical summary for and others: changing the <priority> value in an XML sitemap is a weak, mostly advisory signal and by itself is unlikely to make Google swap which URL it shows for a given query. Sitemap metadata can help discovery, but it is not a ranking lever — Google treats priority/changefreq as hints and often ignores them. (developers.google.com)

Concrete options that actually move the needle (trade-offs noted):

  • If Old Page is being replaced, do a server-side 301 redirect from Old → New to transfer signals and remove the older URL from results over time.
  • If both pages must remain accessible but New Page should be preferred, add a rel="canonical" on Old pointing to New (this is a strong hint but not an absolute command).
  • If Old Page should remain for users but not appear in search, add a noindex meta (ensure the page is crawlable so Google can see the directive).
  • Improve New Page content, title, and internal anchor text to focus relevance on the target keyword, and update internal links and the sitemap to list the preferred URLs. (developers.google.com)

Example snippets (place in the HTML <head> of the Old Page when appropriate):

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/new-page" />
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Note: noindex only works if Googlebot can fetch the page (it must not be blocked by robots.txt). Use the URL Inspection tool to verify what Googlebot sees after changes. (developers.google.com)

Timing and verification: re-crawling and re-ranking can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks (Request Indexing can speed crawling but does not guarantee instant re-ranking). Monitor Search Console (URL Inspection and Coverage) and the site: operator to confirm which URL is indexed and shown. If Old Page still wins after these steps, examine backlinks and external anchor text — those off-site signals often drive which page Google prefers. (developers.google.com)

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Member Avatar for Smiti

Hi folks,

Since i have no idea about priority levels in an xml sitemap so guys share your ideas regarding this and its features

Member Avatar for thefasninja1

Setting a priority level for each page of your sitemap should tell the search engines which pages are more important than others. By default, when you submit a sitemap to the search engines your homepage gets a priority level of 1, and all other pages get a priority level of .5.

Member Avatar for mayaestat

adjusting priority levels in an xml sitemap depends upon which xml file containing your targeted keywords you have to boost in search engine. accordingly you can set priorities.

Member Avatar for AffineMesh

By default, when you submit a sitemap to the search engines your homepage gets a priority level of 1, and all other pages get a priority level of .5.

Consider both pages currently have the same level of 0.5. By how much should I reduce the priority of Old Page?

As a starting point I could try reducing the priority of Old Page to zero; If search engines still prefer to show Old Page instead of New Page then adjusting sitemap priorities is a pointless exercise. On the other hand I don't wish to diminish the visibility of Old Page unnecessarily. Old Page is still relevant to certain visitors.

Has anyone enjoyed any success in changing search engine results with a sitemap? As a tool for webmasters, would you view sitemap priority levels as a sledgehammer or toothpick?

Member Avatar for AffineMesh

adjusting priority levels in an xml sitemap depends upon which xml file containing your targeted keywords you have to boost in search engine.

Sorry, I'm unsure what you mean Maya. XML sitemaps contain URLs, not keywords.

Edited by AffineMesh
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