Unless you make keywords, keywords are not cannibals. It sounds scary, and it can seriously impact your site’s performance, unless you take the necessary steps to correct it.
Keyword cannibalization may be the most misunderstood concept. Before we dive deeper, let’s understand this basic question, ‘ What is keyword cannibalization .’
Keyword cannibalization refers to multiple web pages ranking for the same search query or keyword. This could be because your content is optimized for the same keyword or topic. Optimizing content for similar keywords will reduce the page’s ranking potential and could also affect the site’s organic performance.
Search engines will not know which pages to rank for if you target specific keywords. Worse, search engines might rank the wrong page based on a keyword. You also reduce your chances of ranking higher by reducing click-through, leads, conversions, and page authority.
You are also not showing your visitors how much you know or giving them any unique information about products or services.
What is keyword Cannibalization?
Keyword cannibalization involves having multiple pages of your website optimized for the same or similar keywords, causing those pages to negatively impact the SERPs.
People believe that more pages about your products and services that use similar keywords will result in better rankings. They believe that Google will pick the keywords you are targeting if there are more pages.
Well, it’s not.
When it comes to keyword cannibalization, Google looks at the intent behind the use of the keyword rather than its use itself.
For example, when you type “Apple 7 Series Watch” into Google, you’ll likely find two pages from Apple that attempt to optimize for that particular keyword. But Google doesn’t penalize the page.
It all has to do with intent. The first page contains basic information about the features and the second page is transactional. They are located at different points in the sales funnel.
Increased page visibility and leads can be achieved by having more pages appear above the SERPs. These are important points to consider when targeting similar keywords.
- Provide unique content and other value to readers
- Offer high-quality content
- Give similar weighting
Why is keyword ‘cannibalization’ bad for SEO?
Keyword cannibalization could lead to one page on your website being more prominent than the other. Let’s take a look at the negative SEO effects of keyword cannibalization.
- Google can confuse you by optimizing multiple pages of your website for a particular keyword. Google doesn’t know which content should rank first for that query.
- Keyword cannibalization could affect your CTRs, devalue a page, and lower web reputation.
- Google may even rank the wrong pages – pages you don’t intend to prioritize.
- This can impact dwell times and bounce rate, and creates a poor user experience.
- Your website traffic could also be affected, resulting in fewer conversions.
But why is this important?
- It is not important to prioritize the page that you want to promote. This is basically diluting the CTR by dividing it between multiple average pages.
- Your anchor text does not have a proper anchor. Instead of directing visitors to a single authoritative page, your anchor text or backlinks point to multiple pages.
- The crawl budget of top-tier vendors or ecommerce stores could be severely affected.
- It could also affect your leads and converts.
Impact of keyword cannibalization
One of the most difficult aspects about keyword cannibalization, is that many people don’t know that something is wrong. Some web pages might not rank high enough to raise alarm, but others may rank fourth or fifth. Websites that have authoritative pages will perform better.
Keyword cannibalization can have a number of negative effects on your website. These are:
When you have two or more pages competing for the same keywords, your Internal Links or External Links are likely directing visitors to other pages with the same or similar information. Instead of linking to a page that contains quality information, the information is spread across multiple pages, which decreases the value of your pages.
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Google could devalue a page concerned
Google tries to choose the “right” page for relevant information in its search results. Multiple pages using the same keywords can confuse Google’s algorithm. This results in a page that ranks higher than another, but devalues the others.
Keyword cannibalization’s main effect is its impact on page ranking. Multiple pages that contain the same SEO optimized keywords can result in lower rankings in search engine results.
SEO should be about optimizing the page that provides the most information and linking to other pages. You might see lower conversion rates if this information is spread across multiple pages. Visitors will land on less relevant pages.
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Your page’s authority will be decreased
Keywords are what Google uses to determine the page’s content. Google won’t distinguish the value of pages with the same content if multiple pages have it.
Keyword cannibalization is a technique that reduces the authority of your pages. If you have multiple pages that target the same keywords, the click-through rates from your page are spread across several pages rather than going to one authoritative page. This means that one page of your website is competing with other pages for the SERPs.
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Spend your crawl money.
It’s the number of times Google indexes or crawls your website in a given time period. If you have more pages optimized with the same keywords, you will end up with more pages than you actually need. You will have indexing issues if you crawl more pages than you can afford. Google will not rank your pages if you don’t index them.
These issues can be taken care of without causing you to spend too much.
- Eliminate excessive redirects
- Have enough budget for crawling to cover new pages
- You should ensure you have enough buffer crawl funds to handle large sites.
How do you detect keyword cannibalization
To ensure that you don’t get keyword cannibalization, you can take a few easy steps. First, create a keyword grid that includes the most important URLs as well as their corresponding keywords. Check that the keywords don’t cross over on multiple pages.
You can also download a free keyword mapping software. These tools allow you to combine keyword research, relevance, estimated search volume and avoid keyword cannibalization. You can check the metadata of your page and remove duplicate keywords.
How do I fix or fix keywords cannibalization
After you have determined that your website is suffering due to keyword cannibalization, there are several organizational improvements you can make in order to fix it.
One way to combat keyword cannibalization is by creating a large, authoritative page that you can link from to other relevant pages. A super-page dedicated to architecture might offer links to other styles.
Take a look at your website and see if it has a landing page that can group similar pages together with keywords. This will make it easier to identify which pages you want to explore.
You can audit your pages and combine pages with similar keywords and content, especially if they’re underperforming. This will increase authority and rank the page higher in search results.
Be sure to use relevant keywords in your keyword strategy. There are many tools to help you find the right keywords for your website. In most cases, you will only need to add a new keyword. You must ensure that your pages are consistent with the keywords, but not forcefully.
You should use this option sparingly. Too many redirects could discourage users. Combine pages that contain the same keyword queries.
Combining two or more articles that mislead one keyword is a good idea. You can use all points in both articles to create a long article full of value.
It is possible to combine two non-performing articles into one article. When writing a single consolidated article, make sure you maintain readability. This will solve the problem of keyword cannibalization.
Once you have consolidated all the content, don’t delete any pages or rework the redirect incorrectly.
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Improve internal links
For your website to be successful, internal links are crucial. You must ensure that your website has a strong internal link structure when you delete pages. It is a good idea linking less important pages to more significant pages. This will give Google a clear idea of your priority list.
When creating internal links, it is important to match the correct anchor text with the correct content. Remember that links to pages can also play a significant role in determining how many people visit them. Effectively categorize, tag and add unique content.
Cannibalization keywords and commerce websites
Product pages with similar keywords can be a problem if you have an online shop. It is important to plan your website carefully. It is important to link from each product page to the category page. The page you want to rank for should be the category page. You should remove, fix, or delete old product pages that could be cannibalizing pages of greater importance.
How can you prevent future cannibalization?
Although it is essential to remove keyword cannibalization issues from your website, it is not always easy. It can be a time-consuming task. This is especially true if you have multiple pages that target the same keywords over time. It is best to prevent keyword cannibalization from ever happening again.
You can avoid keyword cannibalization by creating an appropriate content marketing strategy written with your particular website needs in mind.
Keep in mind the purpose of each page when consolidating content. Think about the value it brings to your readers. You can use any keyword search tool to find the right keywords, even long-tail ones. Use Google to compile a list of web pages that include content that matches these keywords. With an intent analysis mindset, approach these pages.
You should carefully review the content to determine the purpose, value, intent, and purpose of the content. Match it to the content that you want to create. You can try to update or add points to pages that share the same keywords and intent, rather than causing cannibalization issues.
Let’s sum it all
Keyword cannibalization is a growing problem. Content developers are trying to optimize their site but don’t understand the language used by Google. The solutions are simple and do not cause permanent damage. The right tools can give your website a much-needed boost. Search engines and SEO will continue to change over time. You need to be able use these changes effectively. Understanding keyword cannibalization, and its intricacies, will help you adapt quickly to the changing landscape and be more effective in the future.