Having a website up and running for a long time can cause a lot of problems, one being the keyword cannibalization. This can also be known as subject duplication, which is when you have numerous pages or posts that all focus on the same subject or keyword phrase.
Be careful when you are consistently producing content, as inadvertently creating the same topic multiple times can be detrimental to SEO.
Maintaining the best possible rankings on Google and other websites should be a priority to you, and making sure that this difficulty does not become excessive, or gets away from you completely, is a must. Check for these things to stop this difficulty from appearing again.
What is Keyword Cannibalization?
The paid search marketing industry originated the idea of keyword cannibalization. When many different ads are vying for the identical keywords, it happens. If you have utilized Google Ads before, then you know how easy it can be to do.
SEO professionals have adopted this genuine idea and incorrectly used it in their distinctively different area of marketing.
This is the usual way of referring to the duplication of keywords in SEO.
When a website contains multiple pages that are all intended to target the exact same or incredibly similar search terms, it is referred to as keyword cannibalization. Google will typically show only a single result from your website, or at most two, when a person searches for a specific keyword that appears in multiple locations on your site. The more pages you have with the same word, the less likely the other pages have of achieving a higher rank on Google.
For example, if there are two of your blog posts which were designed to rank high for the term “artwork” when searched on Google, they will be in competition with one another whenever someone looks up “artwork.” As such, they will both rank lower. Google may become baffled between the two pages and will not be able to determine which should be rated more highly for the investigation.
There are a couple of issues with that standard definition:
- The root of the problem has to do with a failure to adequately address user intent.
- There are many instances of Google SERPs showing fractured (multiple) intent, offering the opportunity to successfully rank more than one page.
- It’s not a question of Google getting confused.
- Creating a lot of content around a main topic will inevitably result in some overlap, since there’s a close relationship
When Cannibalization Doesn’t Matter
If the two webpages of yours are already in the top two spots on the results pages of search engines, there wouldn’t be too much concern if keyword cannibalization occurs; nevertheless, it is still necessary to keep track of the positions, replies, and click-through rates of those webpages. If there are no alterations and your placements stay the same, then proceed ahead. It shouldn’t be difficult for you to avoid keyword cannibalization for these webpages.
Additionally, if your standing and click-through rate are steady, then why would you give away clicks to a page belonging to a rival? It is advisable to not tamper with it and keep an eye on it going forward.
When Cannibalization Does Matter
You should be aware of the effect of keyword cannibalization if a less desirable web page is showing up above the one you intend to rank. Let us assume you have a landing page with a very high conversion rate and a second page that is quite unsuccessful, and these two pages both target the same keyword. Which one would you want to rank higher? In this case, the page that is not producing good results should be moved lower in the search engine rankings so the page that is providing better results will get more attention from the search engine results pages.
The Negative Impact of Cannibalization
Unintentional Rankings
One of the major objections to cannibalization is when two webpages are listed for the same keyword, but a page with lesser performance appears higher up in the list of search engine results than a page that performs better. You should act quickly to fix this issue. Don’t be concerned; at the close of this article, we have presented you with multiple understandable ways to stop keywords from conflicting with each other and damaging your SEO in the future.
Diminished Authority
You’ll not only be relinquishing advantageous organic traffic to your excellent page, however any weaker pages positioned higher will partition your CTR, thus immediately you made yourself a rival. By spreading out your links and anchor text, you are weakening their power.
Using the same keyword on multiple pages can give the impression to Google that your site may possess content that is not very detailed or does not fully align with the keyword featured on each page.
Suffering Conversion Rates
If pages you are taking content from are performing better than the ones you have created, you stand to miss out on potential clients when they arrive on pages that are not quite as pertinent or aren’t of good quality.
How to Spot Keyword Cannibalization
Cannibalization can be observed in terms of metadata and page content.
At the metadata level
Metadata cannibalization occurs when two webpages have similar or identical words/terms within their metadata. For instance, assuming your internet business deals in Acer and Asus gaming laptops and has three laptop associated pages with URL and metadata, this would create a case of cannibalization.
On the page content level
Overlap in the discussion of comparable topics with the same purpose can lead to keyword cannibalization on website pages. It takes more effort to address keyword cannibalization on the webpages than only in the metadata.
Check if your site is suffering from keyword cannibalism
To determine if your site is competing against itself, look up your website using keywords that you believe may lead to multiple results.
To achieve this, enter site:yourdomainname.com and the keyword that you wish to search for. As an example, let’s google “site:marketmuse.com content strategy”
No problems exist as all of the pages have distinct purposes. Although all of them incorporate the phrase ‘content strategy’, each webpage contains distinctive material. Although it would be beneficial if these pieces of content had identical titles such as “Content Strategy: A Complete Guide,” it would create an issue.
Keyword Cannibalization Solutions
If you consider this to be a problem that needs attending to, the initial move should be to lessen the optimization of the pages involved. Certain webpages may be trying to rank for multiple key terms, one of which is the word that is causing the cannibalization issue. You do not desire to delete the web page completely, as you are still receiving plenty of beneficial natural traffic. You just wish you didn’t come up in search results when someone types in that specific keyword, that’s why de-optimizing is so helpful.
Reconfigure Your Website
One solution could be to make the most reliable page into a main or “pillar” page that then links out to others within the same context of the targeted words. Using a start-to-finish strategy, it is clear which keyword will be the emphasis of every page.
The most effective course of action is to make a chart and list each individual page alongside its corresponding primary keyword. Each page will then be deemed the most authoritative source for the keyword in question. Even if there are already web pages created, make sure that they are rewritten so that the content closely mirrors the keyword being looked up.
Remove All Keyword References
Examine the pages that contain the word to be removed and delete any reference to it; although this will not provide the entire solution, as Google utilizes other indicators to decide placement on the listings.
You can do a Ctrl+F search on each page for the relevant keyword, or you can use Google with the keyword in quotation marks, then click on the that come up and edit so that only the most reliable pages have the desired keywords.
Alter Internal Linking Structure
Examine the links inside your website, particularly any utilizing the precise phrase as anchor text. This might be especially tricky, as anchor text including the keyword could be influencing the standings of the cannibalized page.
You can use the same Ctrl+F search or do a “Exact” Google search in order to accurately identify anchor text keywords.
For inward connections that aim to a less attractive page (as one that is cannibalizing a top-notch page), you can either substitute those links with various ones or alter the endpoint to an alternate page.
To easily locate your inter-page links for review or to make changes, utilize Google Search Console. Choose the links in the left column and you can see what your website’s internal connections and text anchors are. If a webpage of poor quality and one that steals views from other pages is listed, look into changing to a page that provides better value and is more likely to generate conversions.
You have the option to just take out the troublesome internal links completely.
Inbound Link Requests
Direct your attention to the sites that are linking back to you with webpages containing the offending keywords. This won’t be as uncomplicated to replace as your inner connections.
Combine or merge articles
If you have a blog or multiple articles discussing the same topic, it would be best to combine them into one piece. Go through both documents carefully and look for the specific terms used in each one, making sure you pay special attention to the words associated with each company. Put the two pieces of writing together into one piece, making sure it suits the desired purpose. If some of your preexisting content is well-ranked by search engines as a result of optimized use of keywords but isn’t particularly relevant or beneficial to your business, think about taking advantage of this keyword by including it in new content.
The joint article should be based off of one of the articles. No need is present to make a fresh article in any way. Direct the link of that article to the one that you are preserving.
Reoptimize pages
Prior to making the extreme decision of deleting or combining clashing content material, read through it to see if you can enhance it or redirect it.
Consider what can be done to enhance your content once you have gone over it several times. Consider if it is possible to alter the emphasis of these webpages, adapting the purpose of each one specifically. When making decisions on how to alter the emphasis, inquire yourself whether the materials and subjects need to be refreshed.
Redirect the repeated pages
If the multiple pages are now out of date or don’t fit with your website any longer, you can reroute visitors from these pages to your homepage via a 301 redirect.
This implies that any previously used web pages will no longer be available for public viewing and that anyone clicking on the provided links will be automatically sent to the designated main page.
Implement noindex tags
In certain conditions, it is not possible to eliminate or move your cannibalized pages. For example, the website pages may have excellent material or even function as their own landing pages.
In that event, you should add rel=”noindex” elements to all pages except the page you have picked to be your entryway page. This will take them out of Google’s listing of sites, so they will not be visible when using the search function.
Use canonicalization
Determining the primary URL, also known as “canonicalization”, is done to identify which version of a URL is the most authoritative. Once you have established which URL is the primary version, that URL will be taken into consideration when it comes to appearing in the search engine results page. Google basically sees the canonical tag as an indication rather than a command. It is conceivable that Google will see the other page as the first.
You can specify canonical URLs through:
- Canonical tags, which allow you to pinpoint the canonical URL for a page. They’re found in the
<head></head>section of your web page’s HTML code and look like this:<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.website.com/page/" /> - Setting a rel=canonical HTTP header response.
- Using 301 redirects, as covered above.
- Your sitemap
WordPress SEO plugins automatically add canonical standardization to blogs and webpages when they are first published, although the settings can be adjusted if needed. It is a wise choice to refrain from combining the use of “noindex” with canonicalization if you are taking on this task yourself. Google views them as clashing, so it can be hard to foretell the outcomes.
Conclusion
If you have been continually adding content to your website for an extended time period, you could struggle with resolving any keyword cannibalization troubles. For this reason, the best solution is prevention.
A beneficial method to utilize is to perform a Google search for [site: www.yoururl.com “keyword”] prior to producing a new webpage or blog article. Be aware of the keywords you do not want to use in the future.
There is much discussion among SEO professionals concerning keyword cannibalization, with some believing it is a major problem and others holding the view that Google is adept at recognizing, interpreting, and assigning an appropriate ranking to content. Google is smart and can usually figure things out. When Google fails, you know how to prevent your pages from competing against each other. Pay attention to the matter, and that way you can prevent keyword cannibalization from happening in the future.
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