Keyword canibalization

[Japking]

Hi,

I'm ranking for 'bodybuilding schema' with two separate pages (see attachment). Is this a problem? I heard that's it's better to only have one page ranking per keyword.

If so, how do I prevent this?

Thanks!

Jasper

MhcOI

[EGOL]

I'm ranking for 'bodybuilding schema' with two separate pages...

Nice work!  This is giving you twice as much exposure in the SERPs and pushing your competitors down.

Is this a problem? I heard that's it's better to only have one page ranking per keyword.

I hope that my competitors believe this.  

[Japking]

haha, nice answer. I guess when both are in top10 it's not a worry

But what if I'm ranking at nr 34 and 36 or something, is it better to use a rel canonical or something to combine forces and have one page rank higher?

[Japking]

haha, nice answer. I guess when both are in top10 it's not a worry

But what if I'm ranking at nr 34 and 36 or something, is it better to use a rel canonical or something to combine forces and have one page rank higher?

[Adam.Whittles]

Hi Jasper,

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It really depends on what your intent with the pages is and which page is ranking higher.

If the most relevant page and the page you want to rank higher is indeed ranking higher then you don't really have a problem. Look at it from this point of view, if you can dominate a whole page of google with your pages (very, very unlikely to happen) it increases the chances of users visiting your site.

It is only really an issue if you are deliberately targeting the same keyword for different pages and want to rank for the same keyword on separate pages. If you are targeting different keywords for each page and they are ranking well for the keywords you are targeting, then it isn't a huge problem that they happen to rank for the same keyword.

Of course, if this is the only keyword that the two pages rank for or the page that is ranking higher is not the page you want to rank higher, then you do have a problem concerning keyword cannibalisation. In this case you will need to analyse both pages to see what is causing the problem. For solutions to the problem you should read Rand's article.

Hope that helps,

Adam.

[activitysuper]

Are the two pages ranking using the same title tag? or even targeting the same keyword but with different wording around it?

If not and one of those pages is actually a page you have been optimising so the title tag, url, content etc and the other page is just a random which has come out the wood work, then just focus on the page your have optimised for.

Get this through the rankings and once it's done if you want to go back and try and pull the other through then why not, just depends if the work to do so would be better spent on another keyword to pull through.

[EGOL]

If you have two pages on the same topic that are essentially duplicates I would 301 redirect the weaker one to the stronger.

If you have two short articles on the same topic that could be combined into one longer article with more complete coverage of the topic I would combine the content on the stronger URL and 301 redirect the weaker.

If these are two distinctly different articles in the same topic area that would not be logically combined then I would keep both of them "as is".

My goal in small niches is to SATURATE the keyword spaces with lots of unique, substantive articles so that I keyword cannibalize everywhere.

Being called a "cannibal" can be a compliment.   Yoummmm!