How to Link sub-pages of a category without cannibalization?

[HMCOE]

What's the best practice to link to sub-categories without cannibalizing SEO?

Main page title = Dog

Sub page title = dog collar

Sub sub page = spiked dog collar

I used SEOMoz program and it showed the link from the main page to the sub page as cannibalized and also as duplicate title Same thing for the sub-sub page. How to avoid it?

Please provide examples

Questions:

1. Would you use: dog_collar or dog-collar for the sub-page?
2. How would you link to the sub page from the main page?
3. How to title the sub pages to avoid duplicate titles?
4. How would you link to the website from other websites? What kind of tags would you want used in the links?

[Chammy]

Canabalising is a tricky thing.

My thoughts - and these may not be 100% correct! - are as follows;

1. dog-collar

2. All depends on how the navigation works for your site, Do you have lots of categories under Dogs? Just list the sub categories and call this one 'dog collars'. You should be doing stuff to make sense to your site visitors as well as worrying about Google, and this makes sense

3. Your titles can hold up to 70 characters - you have plenty of space to make sure the titles are not duplicates even if they both start with Dog. Just make sure you use all your space and have it read well and not 'stuffed'

4. I would use anchor text that makes sense for the readers of wherever the link is being served. There has been all sorts of discussion on too much exact text anchor linking being penalised, but if you keep the readers in mind you should be OK. ie use the website URL when it makes sense. Or 'dogs', or even 'spiked dog collar' if you are actually describing it or talking about it on the website.

I hope this helps - good luck

Wendy