OK, just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, this blog is talking about keyword cannibalization. I really must stress the use of “keyword” here. We’re not going to be discussing any other type of cannibalism, so fans of Hannibal Lecter and culturally insensitive anthropologists from the 19th century can move on to some other website.
All right, are they all gone now? Good, now we fans of content strategy and search engine optimization (SEO) can get down to brass tacks. The keyword cannibalization issue is one that can affect your organization’s SEO efforts and your website’s ranking on a search engine. Let’s dig in — sorry, poor choice of words.
Keyword cannibalization can have significant adverse effects on your overall SEO strategy. It happens when multiple pages on a site target the same keyword or keywords and serve the same purpose. This is a problem because each page harms the other’s search engine rankings. Search engines can’t determine which page is the most relevant result.
It’s important to note, though, that mentioning the same keyword on multiple pages is not the only cause of SEO keyword cannibalization. Other missteps, such as creating different paths to the same product category or publishing a new version of a page without redirecting from the old one, can equally hinder your site’s ranking.
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Examples of Keyword Cannibalism
Let’s say you run an auto body repair shop and you want to create more business coming from search. A logical thing to do would be to write blog articles about vehicle problems. One month, you might write a blog with the keyword “common brake problems,” and then a couple months later, you might use a similar keyword, such as “top 5 brake problems.” A search engine crawler might be confused about which article is more relevant to a search for “why aren’t my brakes working?” This could result in both receiving a lower ranking, perhaps even ending up on page 2, which is basically death when it comes to search engine ranking.
This can also happen with landing pages. Suppose you run a retail business and you have two similar pages on your e-commerce site: “men’s t-shirts” and “men’s long-sleeve t-shirts.” A Google search for “men’s shirts” might return neither page because Google — or Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, etc. — can’t figure out which page is more relevant.
How To Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
Here are nine approaches you can take to avoid your webpages cannibalizing one another’s SEO positioning:
1) Align Your SEO Strategy To Avoid Keyword Overuse
SEO isn’t just about volume. Keyword stuffing won’t get your page to No. 1, and writing about the same keyword over and over won’t increase your chances — it’s not like buying multiple lottery tickets.
Writing about “brake problems” over and over will hurt your content marketing efforts. Instead, try to use a unique keyword every time. Do some keyword research and figure out what people are typing into search engines when they want to know about brake problems.
Keyword mapping can help you decide which keywords are the most relevant, when to use them and how to avoid overlap. After deciding on your priority keywords, space out how often you publish content with similar keywords and try to phrase them differently each time, including using long-tail keywords.
2) Check Your Site Before Creating New Content
This is a simple yet often overlooked step. What’s on your site now? If you already have blogs about “brake problems,” “brake issues” and “brake repair,” then maybe it’s time to focus on tire rotation and tire balancing. And you can use search engine visibility tools to see how well your established pages are doing. If you have something new to say about brake problems, consider updating the existing post instead of starting from scratch.
3) Audit Your Site and Delete or Merge Overlapping Pages
If your old pages are doing OK in search, but not great, you can re-optimize them so they keep up with current search trends. If you find duplicate content on your site, delete the lower-performing page or merge them as part of a re-optimization.
4) Use the Right Tools To Identify Cannibalization
Thankfully, you don’t have to comb through your website looking for similar content and potential keyword cannibalization. There are tools available to make the process much quicker and simpler. Both Ahrefs and Semrush can help identify keyword cannibalization and can provide myriad other insights to help you avoid internal competition and boost your overall content quality.
5) Focus on Topics First, Then Keywords
When you start to focus on search intent, you may come to a philosophical question: For whom are you writing? Search engines or actual human beings?
With the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, it can start to feel like robots are writing content for other robots to read and this equals … marketing?
Maybe, but it won’t equal good marketing. Remember, if a keyword ranks high, it’s because people are interested in it. Good topics are ones that searchers want to read about. A topic-focused approach will almost invariably reflect keyword ranking to some degree.
6) Examine Historical Rankings
You can use one of the aforementioned SEO tools to check the historical rankings of the keywords you’ve used. If you see several of your pages ranking — especially if they’re not ranking great — you have probable cause to suspect keyword cannibalism is afoot.
If the pages serve the same search intent, then you should either merge them or delete the older page(s). This could boost the ranking of the page that remains.
7) Remove Host Clustering
Host clustering involves organizing website content into different topic clusters. Each cluster comprises a pillar page covering a broad topic and supporting pages that explore specific subtopics, all connected by internal links.
If you run a Google search and remove host clustering, excluding similar pages from the same host in the results, you can see multiple pages ranking for the same search. This gives you a sense of the position of each page.
8) Create Comprehensive Pages
If specificity is the soul of narrative, then it’s surely also fairly important to SEO. It makes sense to have similar keywords relating to broad topics. The answer isn’t to write the same blog every time with just a slightly different phrasing of the keyword; instead, cover the underlying topic comprehensively with different blogs or pages addressing different aspects.
For example, SEO itself is a subject with layers and complexities. At Brafton, we don’t rewrite the same “What Is SEO?” blog every year. We delve into various SEO topics, such as how AI affects SEO, how to judge your SEO score and even keyword cannibalization.
9) Work With SEO Marketing Experts
Let’s face it: Doing all the above is a lot of work. Unless you’re an enterprise with a dedicated in-house content marketing and SEO strategy team, it’s going to be difficult to manage all this. After all, you have your own business to run.
When you partner with SEO marketing experts, they can do all this keyword research and strategizing for you. You can discuss what kind of content you want on your site, and a good team of SEO marketers and content writers can translate that into blogs and pages that appeal to search engines and your audience.
Keyword Cannibalization FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions about keyword cannibalism:
1) How Much Keyword Overlap Is OK?
As you’ve probably gathered by now, a little overlap is not only OK, it’s often unavoidable. Just how much is permissible is up to the capricious whims of search engine crawlers, which is why site audits and keyword research are necessary. By using a different primary keyword for each blog or page, you can usually avoid too much overlap. Usually.
2) Why Do Search Engines Penalize Websites for Keyword Cannibalization?
Search engines aren’t trying to be punitive as they might be in cases of keyword stuffing or if you write “Thai food near me” 1,000 times in white font on a white background. Keyword cannibalization is a problem because search engines get confused. When multiple pages target the same keyword, it dilutes the authority, relevance and ranking potential of all competing pages.
3) What’s the Difference Between Keyword and Content Cannibalization?
Content cannibalization goes beyond similar keywords. It includes instances where you have highly similar or duplicate content that might confuse search engines or readers themselves. Content cannibalization implies a wider scope of redundancy.
4) How Often Should I Audit My Site?
It depends. You probably shouldn’t go more than a year in between SEO audits. If you manage a large site with lots of new content, or if you operate in a sector that changes rapidly, more frequent audits would likely be beneficial.
Give All Your Pages Their Own Nutritious SEO Meal
Consistently producing new and original content is tough. However, the rewards are evident. It’s imperative to find new ways to get your website on people’s screens, and a good SEO strategy is one of the most effective ways to do that.