Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword Cannibalization is the SEO error that happens when multiple pages on a website compete for the same Google ranking. This usually occurs when different pages have the same target keyword and satisfy the same search intent.
Let us see what the reasons of happening of Keyword cannibalization are:
- Creating different content with similar keywords
- Making other tracks to the same product categories.
- Posting identical content over and over time.
- Not optimizing subcategory pages.
Keyword cannibalization happens not only with the exact keywords on different pages but could also occur for the above reasons.
How to Find Out Keyword Cannibalization?
Finding keyword cannibalization issues on your website is a small deal. It would help if you searched for the lines of (Domain+keywords), and this will provide the information you are looking for. Let us look at the example. If the website name is makeupforver.com and you are looking for makeup brushes, you need to type makeupforver.com, makeup brushes. Similarly, for other things, you are looking for.
You will have the entire list of makeup brushes. And if your recent posts need to be ranked better and your old post about makeup brushes has ranked high, then you know there is an issue of keyword cannibalization. It’s okay, and It could happen to anyone. Yes, yes, there are ways to stop this.
How to Stop Keyword Cannibalization?
Suppose you have content similar on two pages. Put both content on one page. You should merge them. It is a simple option to do, and it will increase the website’s search engine optimization.
The next option would be to delete the content. This could be best if the content is no longer serving your website. Once your website starts growing and the old content or blogs are using the keywords that you can use now to rank and get more traffic, delete and create the content again.
Remove the keywords. Sound a little crazy, but yes. If you don’t want to remove certain content if you think they are suitable for your website and the presence of the keyword does not matter. Then go ahead, change it, or remove it. It is a slow process but worth it.
Another method that is a little harder compared to others but very crucial. Changing the backlink request. If backlinks are linked to the less helpful content you want to delete or change, then with the help of tracking software for backlinks, find out all the backlinks and then contact the webmaster to whom those backlinks belong, requesting them to delete or change the links. Or you can ask them to exchange those links for new ones on your fresh and new content.
The same goes for internal linking. If you have content linked to other content that is not so important, try removing them and adding them to more important content. Once you do this, the signal is sent to the SERP that the most critical content has been linked, so prioritize it.
Conclusion
Keyword cannibalization occurs when your website has identical content, and eventually, google will drop your website’s ranking. And search engines can rank a particular page higher than you don’t want to. It creates confusion which could have harmful effects. Apart from writing good content for your website’s SEO, you must also avoid keyword cannibalization. So if you do this, there are better chances of getting noticed and ranking at the top.
