Advance Chimney Sweeps

Top 3 Rankings fell for the third month, 504 in July to 403 in August to 320 in September, while first page and top 20 both rose.

The count of queries holding a top three position has stepped down each month. What we know: the queries still in the top three are carrying far more than they were. Impressions from positions 1 to 3 rose from 2,992 in August to 5,388, and clicks from those positions rose from 29 to 90, a third of the month's itemised clicks. Among the searches Google records most often, more joined the top three than left it: "burning christmas trees" arrived at position 1.1 on 664 impressions, "advance chimney sweeps" moved from 7.7 to 1.6, "advance chimney" from 9.6 to 2.6, "chimney sweep morgantown wv" from 4.1 to 2.9 and "chimney repair uniontown pa" from 4.5 to 2.5. The ones that slipped out are mostly a position or two away: "chimney cleaning pittsburgh pa" went from 1.5 to 3.7, "chimney sweeps pittsburgh" from 2.0 to 3.9, "chimney repair morgantown wv" from 2.7 to 3.4, "chimney cleaner" from 2.1 to 6.1, and "chimney sweep monroeville pa", at 2.1 in August, was not recorded in September. The rest of the decline sits in searches Google recorded only a handful of times each, where the site held a top three spot in August and did not in September. What we are doing: the Pittsburgh and Morgantown terms that slipped are the ones we are pressing on first, through the location pages that rank for them, and next month's report will show whether the count steadies now that the first page and top 20 counts have turned up.

The three headline counts come from Google's own record of every search the site appeared for, and the whole site clicks, impressions and average position in the next section come from Google's totals for the site, which is a broader count than the itemised query record. The city-by-city rankings and map pack placements further down come from our daily rank tracker, which checks a set list of priority service searches in each city, so those counts answer a different question and do not restate the headline counts. The AI figures come from the platforms themselves: Microsoft's and Google's own reporting, plus direct checks of the AI answer platforms. Each number stays with its own source from month to month, so the movement you see reflects performance and not a change in how we count.

Nearly the same exposure earned far more clicks, and it came with materially better positions.

Impressions moved barely at all between August and September, 59,800 to 61,300. Clicks moved from 358 to 567. Over the same month average position improved from 24.7 to 19.2, and the first page and top 20 counts in the headline both rose. When a site sits five places higher on average, more of its appearances land where people actually look, and that fits what the click figure did. September is also the front edge of the fall sweep and inspection season, so part of the lift is seasonal demand arriving. The part we control is position, which is why the plan at the end of this report keeps pressing on the searches that already produce the impressions.

The head terms moved up, and the brand searches moved to the top of the page.

Of the twenty first-page terms above, six sit at position 3.0 or better. "chimney repair" holds position 1.9 on 2,183 impressions, the largest first page term on the site, and "chimney repairs washington" moved from 11.8 in August to 7.2 on 890 impressions, more than double August's 406. "advance chimney sweeps" moved from 7.7 to 1.6 and "advance chimney" from 9.6 to 2.6, which is where much of the click gain landed: the brand searches in their various spellings produced 115 of the 273 itemised clicks against 59 in August. Among the service terms, "chimney sweep pittsburgh" produced 33 clicks at position 4.6, up from 20, "chimney repair pittsburgh" improved from 6.4 to 4.1 and "level 2 chimney inspection" from 14.7 to 5.9. One row to read with care: "burning christmas trees" sits at position 1.1 on 664 impressions but produced no clicks in September, so we read it as exposure that feeds the AI citations rather than as demand.

The largest query on the whole site sits on page two.

"chimney cleaning" drew 4,631 impressions at an average position of 18.2, more impressions than any other query the site appeared for, and it improved from 22.7 in August. "chimney repair near me" at 13.7 on 691 impressions, from 16.4 in August, is the same shape: a high-intent service search a few positions off page one with the homepage as its best performing page. Two near me terms moved the other way and belong on the same list: "chimney sweep near me" averaged 21.6 on 907 impressions against 6.2 in August, and "chimney cleaning near me" 15.6 against 6.9. Both still produced clicks, 5 and 4, and both resolve to the homepage, so the October on-page work on the homepage reaches all four at once. The fireplace cluster is the other block: "wood burning fireplace" at 17.0 on 1,191 impressions, "fireplace pittsburgh" at 16.0, "fireplace pittsburgh pa" at 10.7 and "fireplace inserts near me" at 16.3, spread across the fireplace and insert pages as stove season opens. And "cracked chimney" at 10.3 on 475 impressions is three tenths of a position off page one; its best performing page, the cracked flue tiles explainer, is also the page Google's AI selects most.

The home market is the strongest: Uniontown holds a map pack slot on 16 of the 33 tracked searches.

Seven of Uniontown's 16 placements are at position 1, including the head terms chimney sweep, chimney cleaning and chimney cleaning near me. Pittsburgh follows with 9 of 33, six of them at position 1. Washington and Morgantown are where the map pack has the most room to grow, and they are also the two cities where the standard results are strongest right now, as the next section shows.

Six of the eight sit in Washington and Morgantown, and the head term chimney sweep reads top three in both Washington and Pittsburgh.

Chimney sweep reads position 1 on mobile and position 2 on desktop in Washington, and position 2 on mobile in Pittsburgh. In Morgantown, chimney cap replacement near me and chimney liner installation near me both read position 1 on mobile, and level 2 chimney inspection reads position 2 on both desktop and mobile. These are service searches, typed by someone ready to book and not by someone reading up. With half a month of readings behind them we are treating all eight as a baseline, and next month's report will show which of them hold.

Plain homeowner questions are what the Microsoft stack keeps coming back for.

"What is a flue cap" and "burning christmas tree" each produced 12 citations. Neither is a brand search or a service search. They are questions, and the pages that answer questions directly and completely are the pages getting picked. That is a repeatable instruction for what to write next.

Six pages are each earning real exposure inside Google's AI answers, and no single page carries the number.

The top page took 748 impressions, 17 percent of the total, the second 728, the third 460, and the homepage 401, with two more pages at 205 and 118. A spread like that is more durable than a single spike, because no one page losing favour takes the whole number with it. It also lines up with the Microsoft questions: the flue tile explainer, the Christmas tree burning question, the damper guide and the ventilation piece are all question-led pages, and question-led pages are what the AI engines keep selecting.

ChatGPT now names Advance in every tracked prompt, and links to the site in every tracked prompt.

Both ChatGPT measures stand at 100 percent, each up 60 points on the month. On Google's AI Overviews the business is named in 66.7 percent of tracked prompts, up 66.7 points, while the share of answers carrying a link to the site fell 66.7 points to 33.3 percent. Google is naming the business more often and linking to it less often, which fits the easing on Google's AI surfaces shown in View A and View C. The next step is getting the link back alongside the name. That is a job for the pages those prompts are about, which is why the content plan below stays pointed at question-led service content.