Imagine this: you’ve spent hours crafting amazing content for your website. You’re targeting valuable keywords, optimising every page, and watching your traffic grow. But then, you notice something strange. Some of your pages aren’t ranking as well as they should, or worse, they’re fluctuating wildly in the SERPs. You might be suffering from a common, self-inflicted SEO wound: keyword cannibalisation.
What Exactly is Keyword Cannibalisation?
In simple terms, keyword cannibalisation occurs when multiple pages on your website are optimised for the exact same keyword or very similar keywords. Instead of helping each other rank higher, these pages end up competing against each other in the search results.
Think of it like this: if you have two identical restaurants selling the exact same dish in the same town, they’re going to compete for the same customers. Neither restaurant will likely thrive as much as if they specialised or were in different locations. In the SEO world, those “customers” are search engine users, and the “dish” is your target keyword.
Here’s how it harms your SEO:
- Diluted Authority: Instead of one strong page accumulating all the ranking signals (backlinks, user engagement, etc.) for a specific keyword, that authority is split across multiple pages. This weakens the overall signal to search engines that any one page is the definitive resource.
- Confused Search Engines: When Google encounters several pages on your site targeting the same keyword, it gets confused about which page is truly the most relevant and authoritative. This can lead to all of those pages ranking lower than they would if you had a single, strong contender.
- Lower Conversion Rates: If users land on a less relevant or less optimised page due to cannibalisation, their experience might suffer, leading to lower engagement and conversion rates.
- Wasted Crawl Budget: Search engine crawlers have a limited “crawl budget” for your site. If they’re spending time crawling and evaluating multiple redundant pages, they might miss crawling more important, unique content.
- Inaccurate Analytics: It becomes harder to accurately assess the performance of individual pages when they’re all vying for the same keyword. Your data might show a fragmented picture of your content’s effectiveness.
Identifying the Culprit
How do you know if you’re a victim of keyword cannibalisation? It’s not always obvious, but here are some tell-tale signs:
- Multiple pages ranking for the same keyword: Check your Google Search Console or other SEO tools. If you see different URLs on your site appearing in the SERPs for the same query, you’ve likely got a problem.
- Unstable rankings for a specific keyword: Your page might rank well one day, then drop significantly the next, only to have another page from your site pop up in its place.
- Lower than expected organic traffic for high-value keywords: If you’ve invested heavily in a keyword but aren’t seeing the expected traffic, cannibalisation could be a factor.
Your Anti-Cannibalisation Strategy
Don’t despair! Keyword cannibalisation is fixable. Here’s a strategy to help you avoid and remedy this SEO faux pas:
1. Content Audit & Keyword Mapping
The first step is to understand what content you have and what keywords each page is intended to target.
- List all your pages: Create a comprehensive list of all indexable pages on your website.
- Identify primary keywords: For each page, determine its primary target keyword. Be honest – if a page genuinely targets more than one keyword, that’s okay, but ensure there’s a clear primary focus.
- Look for overlaps: This is where you’ll spot the cannibalisation. Are multiple pages aiming for the exact same or extremely similar keywords? Highlight these instances.
2. Implement a Strategic Solution (and make a decision!)
Once you’ve identified the conflicting pages, you have several options. The best solution depends on the specific situation:
- Consolidate & Merge: This is often the most effective solution. If you have two or more weak pages targeting the same keyword, combine their content into one comprehensive, authoritative page. This single, strong page will be far more likely to rank well. Make sure to implement 301 redirects from the old, merged URLs to the new, consolidated one to pass on any link equity.
- Differentiate & Re-optimise: If the pages, while targeting similar keywords, actually serve different user intents or cover distinct sub-topics, you can differentiate them.
- Refine keyword targeting: Adjust the primary keyword for each page so they target unique, but related, long-tail variations.
- Focus on unique angles: Ensure each page offers a distinct perspective, delves into a specific aspect of the topic, or addresses a different user question.
- Optimise on-page elements: Tweak titles, meta descriptions, headings, and body copy to clearly signal the unique focus of each page to search engines.
Here’s an example: If you have two pages about “best running shoes,” one could become “best running shoes for marathons” and the other “best running shoes for trail running.”
- Internal Linking Optimisation: Once you’ve established clear primary pages for specific keywords, ensure your internal linking structure supports this.
- Point to the authoritative page: When referencing a specific topic, always link to the single, most authoritative page on your site for that topic.
- Use descriptive anchor text: Use anchor text that clearly indicates the topic of the linked page.
- Noindex or Delete (Use with Caution!): If a page is truly redundant, low-quality, and offers no unique value, you might consider noindexing it (telling search engines not to crawl or index it) or even deleting it. However, this should be a last resort. Always check for any valuable backlinks before deleting content, and if you noindex, ensure it’s not a page that should be ranking.
3. Proactive Planning
The best way to avoid keyword cannibalisation is to prevent it from happening in the first place.
- Strategic Content Planning: Before creating new content, always perform keyword research and consult your existing keyword map. Ask yourself: “Do I already have a page that effectively covers this keyword?”
- Outline Content Carefully: When planning new articles or pages, create a clear outline that defines the specific sub-topics and keywords it will address. This helps ensure it doesn’t overlap excessively with existing content.
- Utilise Long-Tail Keywords: Instead of constantly trying to rank for broad, highly competitive keywords, focus on creating content around specific, long-tail variations. These are less likely to cannibalise existing content and often have higher conversion rates.
The Takeaway
Keyword cannibalisation is a silent SEO killer that can undermine your hard work. By understanding what it is, actively identifying it, and implementing a strategic approach to consolidate, differentiate, and plan your content, you can ensure your website’s pages work together to boost your rankings, not against each other. So, go forth and conquer the SERPs – just make sure you’re not eating your own SEO lunch!