. How to Identify, Fix, and Prevent Keyword Cannibalization
Digital Marketing

How to Identify, Fix, and Prevent Keyword Cannibalization

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20 June 2024
How to Identify, Fix, and Prevent Keyword Cannibalization

When creating their website, most business owners write many pages on the same subject. With the theory that using more keywords is equivalent to keyword optimization and would raise your SERP position, this entails utilizing more of the same phrases than they would normally employ on a single page. However, this is untrue.

What is keyword cannibalisation and why is it important?

Assume you are using Google to look up “SEO services.”

Similar keywords are being utilized in these search results, which suggests that a person may become confused while viewing links from the same page. Businesses frequently optimize all similar pages for the same keywords when they are careless. Because of this, both pages are unable to obtain a high SERP ranking due to keyword cannibalization.

You suffer from keyword cannibalization in a number of ways that might not be obvious at first.

Because your backlinks are dispersed throughout several target pages that are optimized for the same keywords, their influence is diminished.
End users find it more difficult to locate pertinent information, which lowers engagement and results in a subpar user experience overall.
Due to the fact that your resources and efforts are now split across several pages that are targeting the same keyword, keyword cannibalization also makes it more difficult for you to optimize and maintain original content.

 

Why and when does keyword cannibalisation occur?

The search engine is unable to distinguish between sites that are more relevant or important when they target the same keywords for the same search intent on the same website. This phenomenon of these pages hurting each other’s search ranks is called “keyword cannibalization.”

In SEO, keyword cannibalization happens in a number of ways, such as:

Regularly posting articles on related subjects
publishing a page’s update without rerouting the previous version
establishing several online routes that lead to the same category
optimizing several sites for the same keywords that have comparable content
Subcategory pages are not optimized.

 

How to find and fix keyword cannibalisation for SEO?

For the sake of both your website and business, you should detect cannibalized keywords as soon as possible and take appropriate action. There are three approaches to this:

1. Perform a website content audit

Keyword cannibalization can be easily identified by doing a content audit. Additionally, you can use a number of web tools, such as Semrush Position Tracking, to pinpoint the precise locations where your keywords are currently or may be in the future being cannibalized.

For instance, let’s say you wish to use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool to search your website for SEO-related material. A similar graph will appear, displaying the many pages and content items that have those keywords and their evolution in Google search rankings.

Before changing your current keyword strategy, you can obtain and analyze a comprehensive keyword cannibalization report generated by tools such as the Semrush Position Tracking tool.

2. Run a site: search

Put in this website’s name: Use “Keyword” search to identify all of your website’s pages that are linked to the same subject. For instance, you may use the following Google search to find SEO-related subjects on our website:

You will be able to view all pages that overlap and obtain a reasonable understanding of how to correct the content, whether it be by combining several pages into one or eliminating out-of-date content pages.

How to fix keyword cannibalisation?

1. 301 redirects:

The number of backlinks the website has, whether it currently ranks highest for the cannibalized keywords, and the total number of page views in the last 30 days should all be taken into account when selecting the page to which you will redirect.

To reroute subpages to the homepage of choice:

Create a revised draft of this: By adding useful content from the other pages and optimizing the content for the target keywords, create an updated version of the chosen page.
Revise the page: Release the updated version of the chosen page.
Put 301 redirects into practice: Establish 301 redirects to the desired page from the pages that were cannibalized.
Revise internal connections: Find and replace any internal links that lead to the redirected pages with links to the desired page.
Eliminate the rerouted URLs of the redirected pages from the sitemap.

2. Canonical tags

Redirects might not be the ideal answer in cases when there are duplicate or almost duplicate pages, such as those with complex URL parameters or devoted PPC landing pages. To guarantee that people can still access these pages without compromising SEO, employ the canonicalization technique instead.


In order to point Google toward the primary version, this entails appending a canonical tag to the HTTP header of the duplicate page. As an illustration, consider this:


By using this canonical tag, Google is informed that the given page is the recommended version and should be ranked higher. As a result, it concentrates your page rank strength onto one instead of dispersing it over several pages.

3. Noindex tags

Search engines are advised not to index a page by using the Noindex tag, which is another way to combat cannibalization. This is coded as follows:

Cannibal pages can’t compete with your favorite page for search results if you use a Noindex tag to them.

But only use Noindex as a last resort—for example, for a blog article that receives no organic traffic, no backlinks, or very little content. If not, you risk losing the keywords for which the page currently ranks.

How to prevent keyword cannibalisation?

Keyword cannibalization can be detected and corrected in a variety of methods, but prevention is always preferable to treatment. Examine a few professional tactics that can enhance your SEO approach and stop keyword stuffing.

1. Create a targetted keyword strategy

One of the most effective ways to prevent cannibalisation is honing your keyword strategy to eliminate any problematic overlap. In other words, you need to optimise separate pages for separate keywords and queries. For example, instead of 5 web pages on SEO and SEO services, you can optimise every page for separate queries and search intent such as ‘digital marketing planning’, ‘SEO 101’, ‘SEO techniques and trends’ etc. This helps you establish yourself as a thought leader without duplicating content. Some free tools to help with this are Google Search Console, Moz Keyword Explorer and Google Trends.

2. Track your keyword's performance and rankings

After you’ve found the right keywords, you must continue to monitor their effectiveness. This will assist you in determining which keywords are tracking, where the most competition is, which are more likely to be cannibalized, and which ones you may need to promote.

Using the integrated analytics tool on your website, you can monitor the performance and ranks of your keywords in addition to other analytics parameters. As an alternative, you can use third-party tools for keyword analytics, such as Semrush or Google Analytics.

3. Think topic first, keyword second

A common cause of keyword cannibalization is a change in attention from the content’s subject to keyword optimization. When they are low on keywords, marketing teams frequently overlook the content itself because they believe it will undermine their marketing objectives. Rather than focusing solely on keywords, your marketing strategy should prioritize the themes. This will guarantee that your resources are allocated to meeting the needs of your audience rather than the keyword requirements found in textbooks. Increased internet traffic, trustworthiness, and brand loyalty are guaranteed by doing this. By using social media polls, surveys, feedback forms, rewards, and brand engagement events, you may gain a deeper understanding of your audience’s demands.

4. Perform regular content audits

One has a propensity to put things on autopilot once their website is up and running and their content is performing well. But the market is dynamic and always shifting. To make sure you’re always in line with the interests of your audience and the most recent marketing objectives, you must consistently conduct content audits. Among other things, you need to inquire about the following while performing website audits:

Do the topics on your website still make sense?
Is anything you’ve written out of date or incorrect?
Are your data accurate?
Have you given the appropriate keywords priority?
Do you need to make any adjustments, or will your present keywords and themes assist you reach your marketing objectives the best?

5. Add more subtopics and details to every page

Imagine conducting a Google search for SEO and discovering all of these topics from the same website:

Because each of these sites will have a lot of information that overlaps, there will almost definitely be keyword cannibalization. It is more efficient to add more subsections and a clickable table of contents to one page rather than three distinct ones. In this manner, you may publish a longer blog post without making readers scroll too far and run the risk of losing interest. It is more efficient to have several subtopics because you can use SEO to target long-tail keywords, have multiple search queries on a single page, and add pertinent headers when needed.

To sum up,

Your website will expand along with your business, so as it expands, you’ll undoubtedly find pages that are rather similar and have multiple overlapping keywords. It can be difficult to monitor keyword cannibalization and adjust your overall SEO strategy accordingly.

Make sure you select a keyword expert to assist you in identifying and resolving your keyword cannibalization issues if you lack the time or knowledge to handle everything yourself. Contact our professionals right away to begin taking action before the harm is too great.

Let the professionals handle the task to save you time. Reach out to us right now.

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