Well, Google hasn't been a fan of mine this month. I was researching competition for a client and none of his competing websites have keywords in their title-tags, a keyword list or a description, yet they have 85+ pages indexed. What is up with that?
keywords, description and titles can help you be listed better in the serps but has nothing to do with being indexed... it just helps recieve a better position you should build a site map and submit it to google and build some links pointing to your site (directories, articles, etc)
Keyword lists and descriptions may be of some minor importance. But title tags should not be overlooked. They can bring substantial traffic to your site. Some months ago I began doing serious research on putting better keywords in my titles. The result has been a substantial increase in traffic.
Indexing has nothing to do with the Meta tags. The meta tags help you place your site in the right search engine search results. Seo Ocean
It will not make much difference if u use it not not but still it is highly recc to use tags, even now they have little importance, when we make website we have to make perfect site.
Well, all I can say is that since I started the whole Sitemap process my pages have dropped. It could be because of a google update or because of the sitemap. Who knows.
Title tags should not be overlooked. In my opinion it all comes down to Titles and anchor text link, both on and off-site.
It's possible to rank for a word or phrase that does not appear in a page (google for miserable failure and you'll see what Im talking about). It is however much much better if you do proper titles and descriptions for the entire site (and to make sure they dont compete with each other)
It is unlikely the sitemap has contributed to your lower SERP results. If you want to beat the sites that rank high in SERPs just copy them. Find out how many and what sites link to them and get the same and then some. Follow the onpage optimization that everyone else suggested and in time you will outrank them. One caveat, if your competition has a domain that is substantially older than yours then it will take a bit longer to beat them.
That will not always work. The chances of you getting the exact same links as you comp is very slim. The best thing that you can do is get a few relevant links from high powered sites or a bunch of them from smaller sites. this will win the battle. As far as getting your site indexed that is easy, again a few links from some respectable sites can get this done in a few days.
I think my reco was taken too literally. Yes, get the same backlinks IF POSSIBLE but go above and beyond as well. Chances are highly in your favor that the competition will have a weakness you can take advantage of: 1) Your domain could be older or contains a keyword. 2) Your content could be more relevant 3) Your content could be updated more often 4) You site and/or page structure could be more search engine friendly. 5) As banless indicated your backlinks could also be more relevant or more numerous. Good luck.