The five big leaks
Each one with the evidence, so you can check it yourself.
We couldn't book a single date on your website
Your homepage says "book directly with us to save 10%", which is exactly the right idea. But when we opened the booking calendar on /accommodation/booking/ on 27 September, it jumped to October 2027, and every date we looked at was marked "Booked". There was no date we could select. The date search on /booking/ just reloaded the same page.
If that's what your guests see too, anyone who wants to book direct either emails you or books on Airbnb instead. The quickest check: open your site on your phone and try to book any date next month. It may well be a small settings issue rather than anything big.
On a phone, the main photo takes 7 to 13 seconds to appear
We ran Google's own speed test (Lighthouse, simulating a phone on a mobile connection) twice. The main image took 7.4 seconds to appear in the latest run and 13.2 seconds in an earlier one. Google counts under 2.5 seconds as good and over 4 seconds as poor for this measure. Speed is only one of many things Google weighs, but slow pages lose visitors before they see a single photo.
The main causes: the homepage weighs 11MB, with full-size photos of up to 1.6MB each, and the server takes 2 to 3.5 seconds just to respond. Run the test yourself; results vary a little run to run.
Main image on mobile (latest run)
Google's "good" mark
Mobile speed score /100
Homepage size
About 2,000 local searches a month, and your site isn't ranking for them
We pulled Google search data for Milton Keynes. Around 2,000 searches a month are for the kind of stay you offer. Advertisers pay £1 to £4 a click to appear for them, which gives a feel for what each visitor is worth.
According to Google ranking data, your site isn't in the top 100 for any of them. The only 6 phrases it shows up for are other pubs' names, on page 4 or lower. We also checked the live top 20 for three of these searches: the results are mostly national booking sites and comparison sites (Booking.com, Trivago, Tripadvisor, Expedia), not local owners.
| Google UK search | A month | Your site in top 100? |
|---|---|---|
| accommodation milton keynes | 720 | No |
| places to stay in milton keynes | 720 | No |
| serviced accommodation milton keynes | 320 | No |
| holiday cottage / holiday let milton keynes | 180 | No |
| hotels in wolverton | 140 | No |
Source: Google Ads search volumes and Google UK ranking data via DataForSEO, 27 Sep 2026. Results vary by location and device. Full data linked at the bottom.
AI search isn't picking your site up yet
Your homepage describes the house well in plain text: sleeps 8, 3 bedrooms, sauna, jacuzzi bath, garden, pets welcome, and your package prices. That's a good base.
What's missing is the same information in structured data, the tagged, machine-readable format search engines and AI tools use to be sure what a business is, where it is and what it costs. On 25 September we put five guest-style questions (like "sauna stay Milton Keynes" and "group stay sleeps 8 Milton Keynes") to an AI search tool, and your own website wasn't cited in any answer. Where the Railway Inn did come up, it was through your Booking.com listing.
| Fact | In your page text | In structured data |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | Yes | Yes |
| Whole house, sleeps 8 | Yes | No |
| Sauna, jacuzzi, pets, garden | Yes | No |
| Address | Partly | No |
| Prices | Yes | No |
| Review rating | Link only | No |
| Live availability | No | No |
Your Google Maps listing is great, but unfinished
This is your strongest asset: 5.0 stars from 55 reviews when we checked, claimed, with 43 photos.
It has no business description, though, and we didn't see it in Google's hotel results for "accommodation milton keynes" (720 searches a month). Keep your "Guest house" category as it is: Google's rules don't allow profiles for holiday homes, so don't swap it for a holiday-let category. A proper description and full amenities are the free win here, and they're in the fixes below.
| Google Business Profile | 27 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|
| Rating | 5.0 (55 reviews) |
| Claimed, website linked | Yes |
| Photos | 43 |
| Category | Guest house (keep it) |
| Business description | None |
| In Google's hotel box for "accommodation milton keynes" | No |