đĄAccelerate your thought leadership by contributing to our blog. Join our community of experts now!
Masooma Memon on February 17, 2021 (last modified on February 3, 2023) • 17 minute read
Letâs start with a confession: Iâve heard of keyword cannibalization plenty of times. Each time, I paused and wondered what a weird term. Itâs like youâre eating yourself. And, it turns out, you almost are.
How? Let me explain. When you create content around a keyword that youâve already used, you end up trying to beat out yourself in the search results pages. In other words, you self-compete, hurting yourself. Or, if we were to take the word cannibal literally, eating yourself.
Of course, you donât want to be doing that. Nobody wants to self-compete for rankings and traffic. This is why weâve created this post to help you understand what keyword cannibalization is, how to check keyword cannibalization, and how you can fix it in 8 expert ways.
Hereâs everything that youâll learn today:
On we go.
By way of definition, keyword cannibalization is when two or more of your pages target the same keyword, which, in turn, means you compete with your own pages for ranking in the SERPs.
The result? Reduced traffic and, subsequently, conversions. Generally, in marketing, cannibalization is reduced sales revenue and market share of a product with the introduction of another product by the same company.
In terms of keyword cannibalization in SEO, that means youâre competing with yourself in the search engine results page. Naturally, this will lower traffic coming through as itâs divided between two pages. As less traffic pours in, leads and conversions also sink.
In a sense, SEO keyword cannibalization is like preying on yourself. So, of course, it’s harmful for SEO.
TopLine Commsâs Tom Pallot explains, âItâs an issue because you’re effectively competing against yourself and so each page will rank lower and have lower CTR than if you just had one more powerful page. This means less traffic and fewer leads.â
A couple of things can help identify cannibalizing keywords: going manual into the process, using paid tools, and taking the free route with Google.
Letâs look at each one by one.
If you were to take the manual route, youâll have to make friends with Excel. âCreate an Excel spreadsheet with a list of important URLs and related keywords from your website,â Pankaj Sabharwal from Grazitti Interactive explains.
âIf you find duplicate entries â especially across key pages â youâre suffering from keyword cannibalization. To fix this issue, convert your webpage with the strongest domain authority into a landing page that links to other unique variations, and that help you target keywords.â
Two types of tools can help you with keyword cannibalization, and those are rank trackers and keyword mapping tools. As is obvious from its name, a rank tracker shows which keywords your posts rank for and how well you rank for keywords.
Moreover, a keyword mapping tool lays out a map of all the keywords youâre ranking for. Medicine Directâs James Nuttall comments, âutilizing a keyword mapping tool is a simple and convenient way to identify keyword cannibalization across your website. These tools will display your siteâs most important URLs and the keywords you are trying to rank for.
Analyzing this list will allow you to spot any duplicate entries. Duplicates may mean that your site is being affected by keyword cannibalization; this is a problem that should be rectified, particularly if it is occurring across one or more of the core pages on your website.â
Related: The 24 Best Keyword Tracking Tools (According to 107 SEOs)
So which tools can help you to be exact? One popular name that came up when interviewing experts: Ahrefs.
Janice Wald of Mostly Blogging recommends you head over to the Keyword Explorer in the tool. âWhen you enter your focus keyword ideas, Ahrefs groups them for you into Parent Topic. If the Parent Topic is the same for two different keywords, you should put them in the same post.
Otherwise, you risk competing against yourself for keyword ranking. I don’t find myself in the situation of needing to fix Cannibalization. Thanks to Ahrefs telling me which is the Parent Topic, I don’t end up competing against myself in Googleâs SERPs.â
On the other hand, Ahrefs Organic Keywords report is also a good place to identify repeat keywords that youâre ranking for. This oneâs a suggestion from Elijah-Blue Vieau from The Influence Agency.
âHere, you can view the position trend chart, which is my favorite place to identify and diagnose possible keyword cannibalization,â highlights Vieau. âIf a keyword shows several URLs from your website jumping back and forth, in and out of the index, without a single URL holding its presence – this is a telltale sign of keyword cannibalization.â
Similarly, if youâre a Yoast user, the tool will show you a red bullet point if youâve used a focus keyword before. So a good way to identify keyword cannibalization is to keep your eye on the Yoast dashboard (under your WordPress uploader) and save yourself early on.
Related: Hereâs How to Use Ahrefs for SEO (According to 97 Marketers)
Both Google search and the Google Search Console (GSC) can help with pinpointing keyword cannibalization. To begin with, type your domain name and keyword to find out the information you need.
The formula to remember here? Domain + keyword.
Alternatively, make a beeline to GSC. On this, Niles Koenigsberg of Real FiG Advertising + Marketing advises, âYou can easily identify keyword cannibalization on your site by heading to Google Search Console and comparing your keyword rankings on a rolling quarterly basis.
Measure the difference between your most recent date range and the older date range to see which keywords have risen and which have fallen in their search engine rankings.
When you notice that an important keyword has dropped in rankings, head to Google and use the site: search function plus your keyword in quotes (for example site: databox.com âkeyword cannibalizationâ).
This process will identify all of the live pages on your site that contain your keyword, which then gives you an idea of how your site is currently cannibalizing itself in pursuit of better rankings for that keyword.â
Related: 49 Ways to Track Your Performance in SERPs Using Only Google Search Console
Now that you know how to check keyword cannibalization, are you ready to learn how to fix the solution? Read on.
Our experts suggest a handful of ways to sort keyword cannibalization. But before we give you a handy list of ways to fix cannibalizing keyword, know that you need to first learn what led to the problem.
Flowers Across Melbourneâs Sean Morrissy notes that to fix the problem, you need to know what it depends on. âIf the pages have two different intents but Google thinks they are the same, then you need to clarify things for Google using on-page signals.â On the other hand, âIf you have two pages with the same intent, then you need to either get rid of one completely or combine the two somehow.â
Editor’s note: To explain this a bit better – implementing on-page signals may include inserting a canonical URL (a snippet of HTML code that determines the main version for duplicate, near-duplicate and similar pages) while combining the cannibalizing pages is something that is actually called content consolidation. Since this a different beast to understand altogether, we’ll talk more about both in another post. đ
Capiche? On to the remedies now:
To optimize your website for organic search, you probably use Google Search Console to learn which pages receive the most impressions and clicks, and which queries are driving them. Now you can quickly assess your SEO performance in a single dashboard that monitors fundamental metrics, including:
and more…
Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Search Console experts, who have put together a great Databox template showing the most important KPIs for monitoring organic search performance. Itâs simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, itâs free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up this Google Search Console Dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your Google Search Console account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
Any job gets done when itâs assigned to someone in particular. But, if itâs on everyoneâs plate, theyâd all ignore it, assuming someone else did it. The result? Youâll still be ranking for clashing keywords. Not what you want, right?
So take a page from the Convert team. Trina Moitra shares, âGet a senior editor who is in charge of content performance. Weâve ambitiously titled this role âContent Success Agentâ within our Marketing Circle.
Our editor is responsible for tracking the focus keyword for the monthly blogs we put out and we can refrain from repeating keywords across posts that will just usurp each otherâs link juice.
Being intentional about the pillar-cluster model also helps. We take a page out of SurferSEOâs suggestion and we choose similar keywords for the pillar page, and then longer tails with a more diverse focus for the clusters.â
Once thereâs someone to identify the problem, you can nip the evil in the bud by taking any of the following approaches that Milestone Localization outlines:
Once you know which keywords and pages are in hot water, youâll want to kick things off with research. Note which of your pieces is ranking better. To be specific, âevaluate which page is seeing the best traffic and engagement,â Green Apple Strategyâs Madi Ballou.
Then, go on to redirect users to the priority page or âthe most valuable contentâ in Ballouâs words.
Put simply, âyou can prune, consolidate, and redirect as needed to a single page,â The Influence Agencyâs Elijah-Blue Vieau suggests. âThis makes it as easy as possible for Google to know which URL is the best candidate for the query.â
Yisoo Trainingâs Tyler Tafelsky shares their process too. âI audit the content of each page, determine which page should take priority, and ultimately redirect any obsolete pages to the priority page, while repurposing and reworking the content to best maximize results.â
Hereâs another fix: âupdate the one page to rank better on the specific long-tail keyword it started ranking on,â recommends Frederik Drost from Hype & Style.
Alternatively, you can change the page title, meta description, and the main content body besides tinkering with the keyword. In steps, this process will look like this in the words of SideGainsâ Paul Franklin:
âđ Firstly, you might need to rewrite the page title, meta description, and main body content elements of the page you believe to be weaker in terms of traffic and overall SEO strength. You should consider optimizing the weaker page for a long tail variant or a different keyword entirely.
đ Secondly, if you feel you can’t modify these elements, you could consolidate the weaker page into the stronger one and delete the weaker page.
đ Finally, you might feel a page you identify as a cannibal is actually no longer useful and simply delete it.â
In short, if you go with this strategy to correct the issue, âchange the focus keyword and make sure to update all meta information and title tags for that page. These are key aspects of ranking for that keyword. Also, check the on-page content and adapt it for your new focus keyword,â summarizes Devin Ahern from Mid Florida Material Handling.
Donât forget, make updating cannibalized pages a regular part of your content process just as others do. In fact, about 60% of the experts we surveyed agreed they update their pages regularly.
Alternatively, to fix keywords cannibalization, you can condense the information on the two pages ranking for the same keyword to create one in-depth post.
RetshjĂŠlperenâs Victor AndrĂ© Enselmann calls this the âthe best wayâ to fix cannibalizing keywords. Simply, âconsolidate the two (or more) pages that target the same keyword into one by putting all relevant content on one page and then redirect the other pages to that one.â
Remember, the goal is to create an in-depth piece such that âthe post you decide to strengthen can also serve as your pillar page, and link out to the other posts,â notes Katrina Dalao from Referral Rock.
âYou can repurpose what you donât use into another post, or shift the angle a bit to target a new keyword,â adds Dalao.
Hereâs an example that Liubou Zubarevich from ScienceSoft shares: âimagine that you have 2 articles that compete for the keyword âbig data warehouse’ as both have relevant information:
The SERP for this keyword can help you to figure out the best tactic for this case. If there are several results describing Big Data Warehouse only and they get good estimated traffic values (what can be easily checked by lots of SEO tools) – probably itâs better to win this keyword with a dedicated article (first), and the other one can fight for âData Warehouse Softwareâ family.â
The best solution to cannibalization is, of course, avoiding the problem in the first place. How, you ask? Plan your content with the right keywords in mind. Most of all, focus on creating in-depth pieces so you donât run out of keywords and end up doubling their use.
Rep Capâs Mary Ellen Slayter makes this point well. âThe best fix for keyword cannibalization is to head it off, to begin with! Rather than focusing on producing a lot of short pieces for your site, which will make you run out of keywords quickly, go deep on each topic.
As new information emerges, update your original (already optimized) page or post. Google will love you, readers will thank you, and youâll have less work to do to maintain your site.â
Besides, advance planning also helps. Such that, you have a list of all the keywords youâll be targeting and the content youâll be creating around them.
Related: 14 Free Ways to Research and Analyze Keywords for Blog Posts
Creative Real Estate Copyâs Kirky Galt elaborates, âAvoid keyword cannibalization by planning your site and thought leadership content in advance. Decide which primary keywords you want your home page to target, and then create cornerstone content (blog posts, service pages, whitepapers, FAQs) optimized for long-tail keywords for which your audience is actively searching.
You can find these issues using any of the popular SEO tools to determine for which keywords your pages are ranking and observing any conflicts. Fix them by creating an SEO site plan that assigns specific keywords to each page, and then reoptimize each page accordingly.â
The takeaway? âWhen creating a brief for a new content piece we make sure not to use keywords we already rank for or are trying to rank for with other pages,â sums up Kateryna Reshetilo of Greenice.
Related: 11 Things a Clear and Concise Content Brief Should Include
All that planning you do wonât be very useful if you donât organize it well. After all, information is more likely to slip through the cracks if youâve got a research bank, but itâs not organized well.
To this end, Christina Pigol from CIENCE outlines, âThe best tip to avoid this is having your content properly organizedâjust as simple as that. In my own practice, there are three components to doing it right:
a) Collecting an expanded semantic core I have all of the keywords I need listed and structured by clusters in a separate spreadsheet. It’s essential to include a column where each keyword correlates with a certain page of your site.
This can be an already existing page or one you’re planning to create in the future. Youâll have a structural basis that won’t let you produce excessive pagesâyour only duty is to keep it constantly updated.
b) Having blog posts data in one place Usually, there are pages on your site that go beyond your semantic core. For example, if your niche is quite narrow, you might be accepting guest posts on topics that are wider or distantly related to your business’s semantics.
Itâs much easier to have it under control if you have a neat spreadsheet with all of the SEO data on your blog posts, including focus keywords.
c) Keyword analysis toolsSometimes it happens that your content is ranking, but not for its focus keyword. To make sure your auxiliary keywords donât compete with each other, use keyword analyzers. You can check how your pages are ranking with the help of many tools.
I use mainly Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and Keywords Everywhereâs organic ranking option (a very convenient function introduced recently). Just export the keywords for those pages that you think might be overlapping and check if there are any duplicates.âEditor’s note: Note dips and spikes in google rankings through SEO reporting tool. With set-up alerts, you will get notifications as soon as numbers fall under certain thresholds that you have set.
Another crucial point is to pay attention when youâre selecting keywords. Get that part right and youâre less likely to get into the SEO keyword cannibalization trouble.
Hard to believe? Check out what Benjamin Sweeney from ClydeBank Media has to say, âBy taking a systematic approach to keyword selection and content production, you are in a great place to head off keyword cannibalization before it starts.
If that isnât an option, we have had tremendous success with SEO tools like Yoast and SEM Rush. When we have identified cannibalization we ask ourselves âwhy do we have both of these content assets?â We look for ways to roll them into one another if they are similar enough or determine which should be cut, or if we can rewrite existing content to prevent the conflict.â
One last tip we have here is getting rid of the page thatâs ranking for the duplicate keyword. The idea to remove the post that isnât as valuable as the other. But what if itâs valuable? Then you consolidate the page to create one comprehensive one â something that weâve already discussed above.
See? That wasnât so difficult, was it? To recap, for fixing keyword cannibalization, you can take any of these paths: redirect, re-optimize, recreate into one in-depth post, or remove it altogether.
Get practical strategies that drive consistent growth
Metrics & Chill Podcast | May 31
Marketing | May 30
Marketing | May 25