Table of Contents
Understand the meaning of the keyword Cannibalization
Why Keyword Cannibalism Isn't SEO Friendly?
How do you know if you've been cannibalized by a keyword?
Keyword cannibalization Fix it, adjust it in time
Keyword cannibalization and online stores
Keyword cannibalization is eating away at growing websites
Understand the meaning of the keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization refers to having blog posts or articles on your website that rank for the same keyword in Google, either because they have similar topics or because they were optimized for the same words. This creates competition, and Google will typically only show one or two results for the same domain in search results for a given keyword, unless your domain has a very high Site Score in which case you may get up to three.
Why Keyword Cannibalism Isn't SEO Friendly?
If you are the cause of Keyword Cannibalism, you are stockholder database competing with yourself in Google. Imagine that on your website, this domain has 2 posts with similar or the same topic. If this happens, Google will be confused and will not be able to tell which post should rank the highest for that keyword. Not only that, Backlink and CTR will also decrease because they have to be shared with every post. These factors cause your website's keyword ranking to drop, not just one post, but all of them. Therefore, you should create a clear symbol that which keywords have been optimized on your website to avoid confusion and duplication.
However, keyword cannibalism can also occur if you optimize your posts with different but similar focus keywords. For example, you write two posts about whether readability is a ranking factor. One post is about “Can readability help you rank?” while the other is about “How to rank your site with readability.” There may be some differences, but the two posts are still very similar, and Google cannot tell which is more important and should rank higher.
How do you know if you've been cannibalized by a keyword?
To check if your site is being keyword cannibalized, it’s easy. Just try searching for your site with keywords that you think are likely to rank higher on multiple pages. For example, if you search for “site:abcdef.com keyword cannibalism” and two results appear, then you’ve probably been hit by keyword cannibalism.
A search for “site:domain.com keyword” will give you an idea of how competitive your site is, and recheck the results by typing that single keyword into Google to see which pages are ranking for that keyword and where they are. If the page is in the top 1 or 2, that’s fine, but not a big deal. If it’s in the top 7, 8, or lower, take action immediately.
Keyword cannibalization Fix it, adjust it in time
There are basically four steps to finding and fixing Cannibalization:
Adjust content
Analyze content performance
Choose to keep the best pages
Try merging, deleting or redirecting.
The first two steps will help you decide which ones to keep, merge, and delete—or sometimes you’ll need to merge, edit, and delete all of your site’s articles at the same time.
Merge articles together
If two articles appeal to the same audience and talk about the same topic, try combining the two. Rewriting the two similar articles better than the original may help you climb back up the rankings and fix keyword cannibalization issues (and let me tell you, Google loves long content).
Not only that, combining two articles also improves readability, which is another important factor in ranking. However, one thing you should not forget is that when you edit a new blog, one blog will inevitably be deleted. Do not delete it immediately, but redirect to the archived blog first, or else you will have another problem with Redirect 300.
