{"id":22929,"date":"2021-04-19T17:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/?p=22929"},"modified":"2021-12-16T12:33:50","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T11:33:50","slug":"keyword-cannibalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/keyword-cannibalization\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Keyword Cannibalization and How to Fix It"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The key to bringing in more new visitors is your SEO \u2013 your making it easier for search engines to correlate your content to search queries. This in turn dictates how likely are they to see your website\u2018s pages as a result of their queries. There\u2018s a lot to be said about even the <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/seo-basics\/\">basics of SEO<\/a>. In fact, optimizing websites for search engines is a job in itself. However, we feel that there are things every WordPress user \u2013 or indeed every website admin \u2013 should know about <strong>making the best use of good SEO practices<\/strong>, and <strong>keyword cannibalization<\/strong> is one of those things.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Keyword cannibalization is one of several possible reasons why your posts may not appear in search results, whichever search engines your potential visitors use. But what is keyword cannibalization, really?<strong> Is there a way to fix or avoid it?<\/strong> This is exactly what we will be discussing in this article. If you are confident you know all you need to know about what keyword cannibalization is, feel free to scroll right down to the appropriate section. And if you are only just starting to generate your content, be sure to check out our section on how to avoid cannibalization in the first place \u2013 it is, unsurprisingly, much easier than fixing it.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;22px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#what-is-keyword-cannibalization\">What is Keyword Cannibalization?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#how-to-identify-keyword-cannibalization\">How to Identify Keyword Cannibalization?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#where-can-keyword-cannibalization-occur\">Where Can Keyword Cannibalization Occur?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#how-to-fix-keyword-cannibalization\">How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;5px&#8221;]<ul class=\"qodef-unordered-list-item qodef-toc\">\n    <li>\n\t        <div class=\"qodef-ul-title-holder\">\n            <span class=\"qodef-ul-title-content\"><a href=\"#how-to-avoid-keyword-cannibalization\">How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization?<\/a><\/span>        <\/div>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;80px&#8221;][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=&#8221;new-seo-banner&#8221;][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;80px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"what-is-keyword-cannibalization\"><\/a>What is Keyword Cannibalization?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Simply put, keyword cannibalization is the situation in which <strong>multiple results from the same domain are competing against each other<\/strong>. But why does that happen?[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]A search engine will typically show one to two results from the same domain. A website, typically, deals with similar topics. Therefore, you can have invested a lot of research and hard work into your content, only to have <strong>multiple pages or articles optimized for the same or similar keyword or keywords<\/strong> search. When that happens, a search engine does not know how to distinguish between then, and which one to rank better.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]This, predictably, leads to problems with your search engine optimization \u2013 it gets <strong>watered down<\/strong>, and the results from your domain will likely rank lower than they otherwise would.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"how-to-identify-keyword-cannibalization\"><\/a>How to Identify Keyword Cannibalization?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;24px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder    \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"553\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Identify-Keyword-Cannibalization.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"How to Identify Keyword Cannibalization\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Identify-Keyword-Cannibalization.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Identify-Keyword-Cannibalization-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Identify-Keyword-Cannibalization-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Identify-Keyword-Cannibalization-620x354.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Identifying whether cannibalization occurs at all isn\u2018t that hard: simply <strong>use a search engine to search for your content<\/strong> and take a look at the results. If you are optimizing for Google, you can make sure you are only getting results from your website, by using the site: operator. In fact, there are several <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/google-search-operators\/\">Google search operators<\/a> which may prove useful to you when trying to detect cannibalization.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Now, if a keyword or a set of keywords provides you with<strong> multiple results from your website<\/strong>, chances are these <strong>pages are cannibalizing each other<\/strong>. There\u2018s a popular saying that there\u2018s nothing so invisible as the second page of Google results. If you want to see whether your pages appear in peoples\u2019 searches, you can try using the private browsing mode. If two or more of your pages rank at the top of the list of results, then there\u2018s no problem. If they rank low on the first page, or, worse yet, on the second or subsequent pages, then it may be due to cannibalization, and you might want to invest in fixing it.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]If you&#8217;re running an audit, or if you want to check for cannibalization over all of your keywords, the following post helps <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themetablog.io\/keyword-research\/identify-keyword-cannibalization\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">identify keyword cannibalization<\/a> at scale. It features a free spreadsheet tool you can use to find all the keywords where you might have cannibalization.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"where-can-keyword-cannibalization-occur\"><\/a>Where Can Keyword Cannibalization Occur?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The reasons why your pages compete with each other may have their causes in your <strong>content<\/strong> itself, or your <strong>metadata<\/strong>. It is important to understand the difference, because this will affect how you need to go about fixing it.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Firstly, let us discuss your <strong>content<\/strong>. If you have more than one article covering the same topic or event, or if you have multiple similar product posts, it is likely they will compete with each other for the attention of your visitors, but also, crucially, search engines. Any major intervention into your content aimed at fixing cannibalization is going to take a greater deal of time then avoiding keyword cannibalization ordinarily would, so it\u2018s best to prevent it or detect it early.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]It could also be the case that your pages\u2018 <strong>metadata<\/strong> is the problem. This refers to titles, headings, and all other data which do not form the main body of your content. This kind of cannibalization is likely to be less difficult to fix.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"how-to-fix-keyword-cannibalization\"><\/a>How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;24px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder    \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"553\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Fix-Keyword-Cannibalization.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Fix-Keyword-Cannibalization.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Fix-Keyword-Cannibalization-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Fix-Keyword-Cannibalization-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Fix-Keyword-Cannibalization-620x354.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]This mainly depends on where your problem actually is.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;72px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"qodef-h5\">How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization Caused By Website Content?<\/h3>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]If your <strong>content<\/strong> is the cause of cannibalization, you will need to do some planning. This typically occurs with opinion pieces, analyses, or posts about things which occur periodically \u2013 wherever you can expect a significant amount of overlap.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]In this case, you should probably ask yourself if you should be fixing cannibalization at all. Your content isn\u2018t boring or repetitive just because you have approached a topic from different angles \u2013 just the opposite. But if you feel some of your content is redundant, there are things you could do to prevent your pages from being cannibalized.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]One solution is to <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/how-to-create-301-redirects-in-wordpress\/\">set up a 301 redirect<\/a>. Simply select the page which is getting less traffic, and redirect all its traffic to the one getting more. A 301 redirect means that one of your pages will no longer be accessible, though.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]In case you want both pages to continue to exist, you can<strong> set up a canonical tag<\/strong> for one of your pages on the other, making one page the \u201cmaster copy\u201d in the eyes of the search engine. This will stop cannibalization, but both pages will continue to exist.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Finally, you could <strong>consolidate your content<\/strong>. If you have a significant amount of overlap, you could clear it up and use internal links to refer your visitors to another related post instead. You could also merge your posts to cover all the relevant points in one place, if you feel an old post could use expanding or rehaul.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;72px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"qodef-h5\">How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization Caused By Metadata?<\/h3>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]If your problem lies in the <strong>metadata<\/strong>, it means that some or all of your metadata for at least two of your posts is the same or similar: titles, subheadings, descriptions and the like.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]This is typical of ecommerce websites \u2013 after all, there are only so many words you can use to describe a T-shirt, and ecommerce product pages tend to have little other content as well. It shouldn\u2018t be very difficult to fix.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]You can fix that by using your category pages correctly. Simply use <strong>general terms for the root pages<\/strong> going into more and more specifics as needed. With a little effort, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wordpress-taxonomy\/\">make good use of your taxonomies<\/a> and greatly improve your SEO. You should also change up the meta descriptions, and possibly even headings if you feel they are too similar, making sure a query submitter will distinguish between your pages even if they both appear in the same search.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]In any case, you can \u2013 and should \u2013 always test your content after making changes and see if your changes have made an improvement.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\"><a id=\"how-to-avoid-keyword-cannibalization\"><\/a>How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization?<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;24px&#8221;]<div class=\"qodef-single-image-holder    \">\n    <div class=\"qodef-si-inner\" >\n                                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"969\" height=\"553\" src=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Avoid-Keyword-Cannibalization.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization\" srcset=\"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Avoid-Keyword-Cannibalization.jpg 969w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Avoid-Keyword-Cannibalization-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Avoid-Keyword-Cannibalization-768x438.jpg 768w, https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/How-to-Avoid-Keyword-Cannibalization-620x354.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px\" \/>                        <\/div>\n<\/div>[vc_empty_space height=&#8221;38px&#8221;][vc_column_text]This is the bit that involves planning ahead.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Firstly, before even creating content, you should <strong>check whether you have already covered the same topic<\/strong>. If that is the case, there are several things you could do to avoid cannibalization. If the older page is obsolete, you could just delete it and start from a clean slate. But that could mean broken links, in case some other pages link to it, and you could use referral traffic. It is probably better to set up a 301 redirect, as we have discussed, and have all the old links refer to your new content.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Secondly, if you have an old page which may cannibalize a newer one, you could <strong>tweak the metadata<\/strong> of the older page or the planned metadata for the newer one in order to avoid cannibalization.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;28px&#8221;][vc_column_text]Finally, <strong>check and check again<\/strong>. Whatever changes you make, you could be unintentionally making matters worse, rather than better. Research your keywords before planning your content, and see if you have caused unintentional cannibalization after posting. If you have to revert to a prior state of your website, it\u2018s much better to do it as early as you can detect an issue.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;68px&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"qodef-h4\">In Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Keyword cannibalization is not something people often think about when developing their website and learning how to plan their content, which leads to their losing traffic over issues which could have been avoided with a little planning beforehand. And even if it does happen, it is something that can easily be remedied. Bringing your pages to the attention of search engine users is hard enough even when you\u2018re not sabotaging yourself \u2013 so you better make sure you don\u2018t.<br \/>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All you need to know about fixing or avoiding keyword cannibalizaion and improving your SERP ranking in one article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16990,"featured_media":23827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25,4],"class_list":["post-22929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-seo","tag-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16990"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qodeinteractive.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}