Hey all
I looked and don’t think this has been covered before. So hope this helps someone…
When you submit your sitemap to Google for indexing, the sitemap exposes https://yourhompage.com/index as your home page, which then redirects to your actual homepage. This on its own will mean your home won’t rank very well.
Easy fix though.
Make sure you then, in Google webmaster submit your standalone homepage URL to be indexed.
For example, my site was ranking on PAGE NINE for searching just its name. After I indexed the home URL itself, within half an hour it was ranked in the number 2 slot for its name term. Makes a huge difference.