What are Cannibalized Pages - How to fix them

Keyword cannibalization is one of many speculative SEO topics. There are divergent viewpoints: While some assert that it is a serious problem that could result in sudden ranking drops, others are unaware of its existence.?

What then is the term "cannibalization"? Does it really affect how well a website ranks? Let's examine the phenomenon in greater detail to determine when it presents a problem and when it does not. If it is, we should be able to find it and fix it.?

What is Keyword Cannibalization??

Keyword cannibalization is a ranking issue in which multiple pages from the same website compete for a single keyword in list items, harming one another's positions.?

When multiple pages are optimized for the same or similar queries, Google is unable to determine which is more relevant, this is known as keyword cannibalization. Subsequently, these pages rival each other in natural outcomes, and not even one of them can get to the top positions.?

The marketing concept of product cannibalization gave rise to the SEO term: This occurs when a company introduces a new product to replace an older one and loses sales.?

The term showed up in the early time of inquiry streamlining when SEOs accepted that it would be simpler for their sites to rank assuming they made many pages focusing on a similar keyword.?

Further on, Google introduced a number of updates, one of which was dubbed the "Site Diversity Update," with the intention of limiting the number of domains that could appear in a single SERP. The goal of this improvement was to broaden the range of search results and boost organic competition.?

Presently, multiple pages from the same domain can't appear in the organic listings because of host crowding and domain clustering filters. In the past, the top 10 contained five pages from the same domain. In most cases, Google now displays two pages from the same domain on a SERP.?

Google's domain crowding filter can be disabled by running the query search and appending the &filter=0 to the URL of the Google search page. For instance, when I search for "on-page SEO tool," I find SEJ's domain on page 3. Additionally, when the filter is deactivated.

Today, search engines are able to precisely define the topic of a page. In addition, search engines consider more than just keyword density when determining a page's relevance to a query and the search intent. Google will display relevant articles from the same website in the search engine results page (SERP). But would they feed off of each other? It all depends.

How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization Issues??

There are a few steps you can take to address keyword cannibalization and enhance your overall SEO strategy after determining where it is affecting your website.?

1. Eliminate or Consolidate Web Pages?

Keyword cannibalization issues are frequently caused by multiple webpages that satisfy the same user intent or provide similar information. In these situations, you might want to think about putting all of the content on one page. ?

This solves the problem of keywords that have been used before and can even help you create more robust, in-depth content for your websites. Now, if the content on a page is repetitive but doesn't add value or can't be combined with other pages, it might be worth removing it all together. In the event that a webpage is deleted, 301 redirects should be set up.?

2. Keep your content ideas unique.?

Keep track of the information you've already shared on your webpages and the target keywords you used to create new content ideas for your website to avoid duplication. This can assist you in avoiding cannibalization issues in the future by preventing you from creating content that is overly similar. This doesn't mean you can't write about things that are similar to each other or overlap, but you should avoid writing about the same subjects. Think about new approaches to these subjects, keywords you haven't previously targeted, or even new marketing objectives for those pages.?

3. Set Up Canonical Tags ?

A lack of canonical tags—lines of code that designate a particular webpage as the preferred version for indexing and ranking when other pages with similar or identical content (such as translations into foreign languages) exist—is one common cause of keyword cannibalization. Google will decide for itself which page it considers to be most relevant in the absence of these tags. Keyword cannibalization can occur because these pages share content, including keywords. Set a canonical URL to specify which webpage you want Google to index as the original content to fix this.?

4. Reoptimize Old Content ?

Another way to combat keyword cannibalization is to go back through old content and reoptimize keywords. You can differentiate the content of that page so that other pages on your website aren't directly competing with it by listing the keywords for which your content already ranks well and looking for opportunities to target other keyword types you may have overlooked.?

Why is keyword cannibalization bad for SEO??

Let's look at the bad things about keyword cannibalization more closely. What then makes keyword cannibalization so detrimental to SEO? It results in, among other things, the following:?

Traffic and sales conversions lost - Your landing page will undoubtedly receive less traffic and, as a result, fewer conversions as it competes with another one in a SERP.?

Loss of website authority and content value - Users lose faith in the expertise and authority of the website creators when they see too many pages on the same subject, especially when they appear thin and inadequate. Google does as well.?

The decrease in link value - Links will have less impact on rankings if multiple pages are optimized for the same keyword, whether this is done intentionally or not. Instead of being concentrated on a single URL, the link juice is distributed among several.?

Your SEO efforts will eventually be a waste of time and resources due to this negative impact. Therefore, the most effective strategy in this case is to check your pages for cannibalization issues, address them, and try to avoid them in the future.?

Conclusion?

It's possible that keyword cannibalization is hurting your efforts to rank certain keywords. The Keyword Cannibalization report should be run at least once every quarter, in my opinion. You will be able to fix cannibalization issues and give your target page the best chance of ranking well with the assistance of this.?