Many individuals imagine that having a number of pages about the identical factor confuses serps and leads them to rank the “mistaken” web page.

Within the phrases of Patrick Stox, this entire concept is “preposterous.”

He’s proper. Having a number of pages about the identical factor can result in sudden or undesirable rankings, nevertheless it doesn’t all the time imply that one thing’s mistaken or wants fixing. Nevertheless, it will probably often sign a chance to consolidate content material to enhance rankings and natural efficiency.

On this information, you’ll be taught:

Key phrase cannibalization is when a number of pages on a web site goal the identical or comparable key phrases and compete in opposition to one another to harm the positioning’s natural efficiency.

For instance, let’s say we now have two pages about technical website positioning. If we might get extra natural visitors general by combining the 2 pages into one, that’s a cannibalization difficulty. The existence of these two pages is consuming away at our natural efficiency.

Key phrase cannibalization is dangerous. Nevertheless it’s essential to keep in mind that you solely have an actual cannibalization difficulty when a number of pages goal the identical key phrase and damage a web site’s natural efficiency.

On condition that pages are inclined to rank for a lot of key phrases, that’s not all the time the case.

For instance, let’s say that we now have two pages focusing on the identical key phrase. One in all them ranks #1, however the different web page (that we’d choose to rank) is nowhere to be seen. You possibly can argue that that is textbook key phrase cannibalization as a result of one web page is seemingly “cannibalizing” visitors to the opposite web page.

However even when that’s true for visitors from this key phrase, what if these pages every rank for a whole lot of different key phrases?

In that case, why fear about visitors from simply one key phrase?

The fact is that we don’t have an actual cannibalization difficulty right here as a result of the existence of those two pages seemingly isn’t harming our web site’s general natural efficiency. If we had been to merge or delete certainly one of them, we’d seemingly lose a few of our different key phrase rankings and see a internet drop in visitors.

The trick to discovering actual cannibalization points is to search for pages that focus on the identical key phrases and fulfill the identical or very comparable intent.

The rationale for that is that if the intent is similar, every web page is unlikely to be rating for plenty of completely different long-tail key phrase variations. So there’s often extra to realize than lose by consolidating the pages.

Let’s take a look at just a few methods to determine these pages.

Possibility 1. Do a content material audit

Until your web site is big, cannibalization points must be comparatively simple to identify throughout a content material audit.

Possibility 2. Have a look at historic rankings

This works finest while you need to test for cannibalization points for a selected key phrase

Right here’s find out how to it in Ahrefs’ Website Explorer:

1. Enter your area
2. Go to the Natural key phrases report
3. Filter for the key phrase you need to examine
4. Click on the rating historical past dropdown

For instance, if we take a look at Moz’s historic rankings for “key phrase cannibalization,” we see three pages rating within the final six months—none of which ranked larger than place #8:

Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at two of these URLs:

/weblog/identify-and-tackle-keyword-cannibalisation-in-2019

/weblog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization

Right here’s what they inform us concerning the pages:

1. They’re each weblog posts.
2. They’re each about the identical factor (i.e., tackling/fixing key phrase cannibalization).
3. The primary one is outdated (it has “2019” within the URL).

So this is nearly actually a cannibalization difficulty. The pages fulfill the identical intent and compete in opposition to one another. Moz’s general natural efficiency might seemingly be improved by consolidating them.

Possibility 3. Run a web site: search

Head to Google and seek for web site:yourwebsite.com "matter". You’ll see all of the pages in your web site associated to that matter.

If we do that for web site:moz.com "key phrase cannibalization", you’ll be able to see that the primary three outcomes are those we beforehand found in Website Explorer:

Possibility 4. Run a Google search and take away host clustering

Operating a web site: search may help you to search out potential cannibalization points. The one difficulty is that the outcomes lack a way of place, making it laborious to know find out how to sort out the difficulty.

Should you take a look at the earlier instance, you’ll see that it most likely is smart for Moz to merge three of their pages. However how precisely ought to they merge them? Which pages must be redirected, and which ought to they maintain? Is that this even seemingly to enhance issues?

You’ll be able to typically discover solutions to those questions by working an everyday Google search and eradicating host clustering—which is the place Google excludes comparable pages from the identical host from the search outcomes.

For instance, if we seek for “key phrase cannibalization” in Google, we solely see one consequence from Moz within the prime 20:

But when we append &filter=0 to the Google search URL, it removes host clustering and divulges three outcomes from Moz within the prime 20:

That is helpful as a result of it offers every URL a way of place.

On this instance, we see Moz’s 2019 submit rating in place #6 and the opposite two posts rating in positions #12 and #13, respectively.

So we all know now Moz might rank larger than place #6 by combining a few of these pages and redirecting. It’s additionally evident that Google presently considers the web page in place #6 probably the most related consequence for this key phrase. Thus, it most likely is smart to work primarily with that web page and redirect the opposite pages there.

Possibility 5. Examine for a number of rating URLs

If Google ranks a number of URLs for a key phrase, that may be an indication of a cannibalization difficulty.

Right here’s find out how to discover these key phrases in Website Explorer:

1. Enter your area
2. Go to the Natural key phrases report
3. Toggle “A number of URLs solely”

You’ll be able to see that once we do that for Moz, Website Explorer finds the identical difficulty for the time period “key phrase cannibalization” as we discovered earlier utilizing methodology #2.

Simply bear in mind that this doesn’t all the time work, as Google tends to not rank a number of pages (in “common” positions) from the identical host, as mentioned beforehand. However because it’s tremendous fast to do in Website Explorer, it’s nonetheless price a fast test.

Should you’re assured that you’ve a cannibalization difficulty in your arms, you’ll be able to typically enhance natural efficiency by consolidating the pages. Which will imply redirecting an outdated, outdated web page to one thing extra related that you have already got or combining a number of pages into one thing new.

Both possibility will often have a constructive influence as a result of they consolidate recognized rating indicators like backlinks and inside hyperlinks into one web page slightly than diluting them throughout a number of pages.

We noticed success by doing this in 2018 for 2 guides about damaged hyperlink constructing.

Right here’s what we did:

1. We wrote a brand new information consolidating the data from each guides.
2. We revealed the brand new information at one of many present URLs.
3. We deleted the outdated information and redirected it to the brand new information.

You’ll be able to most likely inform once we did this within the graph under, which exhibits our historic rankings for “damaged hyperlink constructing”:

Our historic estimated natural visitors to those two pages additionally exhibits the constructive change (the arrow marks the consolidation date):

Till the redirect in 2018, each pages had been getting a little bit of visitors. After consolidating and redirecting, just one will get visitors… nevertheless it will get far more visitors than each pages (mixed) did beforehand.

TIP

Keep in mind that it’s all the time a finest observe to swap out any inside hyperlinks after implementing redirects. You should utilize the Hyperlink Explorer device in Ahrefs’ Website Audit to do this:

1. Crawl your web site with Website Audit
2. Go to the Hyperlink Explorer device
3. Click on Superior filter
4. Click on +Rule
5. Change the brand new rule from “Is supply inside” to “Goal URL”
6. Enter the outdated redirected URL

You’ll then see an inventory of pages internally linking to this URL, together with the anchor textual content of the hyperlink and different particulars.

Study extra: Inner Hyperlinks for website positioning: An Actionable Information

Is the answer actually this easy?

More often than not, sure. However as our extra skilled readers will know, there’s plenty of “it relies upon” in website positioning, so there are occasions when issues are a bit extra nuanced.

For instance, we now have two very comparable guides:

Tips on how to Submit Your Web site to Search Engines

Tips on how to Submit Your Web site to Google

Each of those pages fulfill very comparable intent, regardless of focusing on barely completely different key phrases. And if we take a look at their estimated natural visitors, we see that one web page’s visitors pales compared to the different:

So this seems to be like a cannibalization difficulty, and we must always most likely merge the pages. Proper?

Maybe. However then once more, our information to submitting web sites to serps couldn’t be performing any higher in natural search proper now.

It ranks #1 for its major goal key phrase…

… and appears to have just about maxed out its “visitors potential” (it’s getting extra visitors than each different comparable information):

So is that this actually a cannibalization difficulty? Is there actually something to be gained by merging these pages? In all probability not. And consolidating the posts into one would most likely trigger us to lose the small quantity of natural visitors that the opposite information presently will get. So why hassle?

One other instance of a nuanced state of affairs is focusing on the identical key phrase on a number of pages that fulfill completely different intents. That is superb if the key phrase has blended intent, and this often isn’t an actual cannibalization difficulty. Positive, you may even see some key phrase overlap or periodic rank swaps. However every web page will often get visitors from its personal bucket of long-tail key phrases.

(Once more, this is the reason it doesn’t often make a lot sense to deal with “fixing” cannibalization on the key phrase degree. You threat shedding visitors from long-tails.)

However what in case your analytics let you know that certainly one of these pages has little or no worth?

For instance, maybe one is a brilliant ToFu weblog submit, and the opposite is a BoFu touchdown web page.

On this case, so long as you’re 100% sure that the low-value weblog submit has no worth to your enterprise, you’ll be able to delete the web page and redirect it to the touchdown web page to consolidate “authority.”

This can seemingly trigger you to lose some natural visitors general. Nevertheless it shouldn’t matter, as you recognized that visitors as having no worth to your enterprise.

Individuals typically attempt to resolve cannibalization on the key phrase degree with seemingly logical options which might be essentially flawed in observe. Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at these, so you already know what to not do.

Delete the web page

That is not often an excellent resolution until the web page has no worth for your enterprise (mentioned beforehand) or ranks for under the “cannibalizing” key phrase. Each of those eventualities are fairly unlikely, so it is a uncommon factor to do within the face of cannibalization.

Noindex the web page

Noindexing causes serps to drop the web page from their index, that means it received’t rank for something. It is a horrible approach to repair cannibalization and, once more, highlights the rationale why tackling cannibalization on the key phrase degree is nearly all the time a foul concept.

Really useful studying: Robots Meta Tag & X‑Robots-Tag: Every part You Have to Know

Canonicalize the web page

That is solely a viable resolution when coping with a number of pages which might be close to or actual duplicates, in any other case often known as duplicate content material. Canonicalization will not be a approach to repair key phrase cannibalization.

Really useful studying: Canonical Tags: A Easy Information for Learners

De-optimize the web page

This one sort of is smart in idea however is essentially flawed as a result of you’ll be able to’t de-optimize a web page for only one key phrase. Issues don’t work that means. For instance, eradicating all inside hyperlinks with the cannibalizing key phrase because the anchor is more likely to have an effect on the web page’s rankings for different key phrases too. The identical is true for eradicating mentions of the cannibalizing key phrase from the web page.

Ultimate ideas

Key phrase cannibalization isn’t actually a factor—at the very least not in the best way most individuals perceive it. Google doesn’t get “confused” by a number of pages about comparable issues or pages focusing on the identical key phrases. It is aware of what’s on these pages and ranks them accordingly.

Does that imply Google will all the time rank the web page you need it to rank? In fact not. However that doesn’t imply that it’s “rating the mistaken web page” or that drastic motion is required to “repair” the issue. Many widespread “options” to key phrase cannibalization do extra hurt than good.

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