Multiple page rank - harm or good?

[MissThumann]

Can someone explain this to me, as I just ranked a page on our website and intended to do the same for 3 other pages. our home page is currently ranked well, but after reading this (below from Moz) I'm concerned if i'm doing more harm then good. I just ranked the page 3 days ago, I haven't seen any drops yet.

When multiple pages with the potential to rank well are combined into a single page, they not only stop competing with each other, but also create a stronger relevancy and popularity signal overall. This will positively impact your ability to rank well in the search engines.

Thanks in advance, Lauren.

[Cody_West]

Hi Lauren,

This is true in the case of keyword cannibalism. For example, lets say you have a page you are trying to rank for the keyword "Auto Insurance," but you also have two other pages that target the same keyword. These pages will end up competing (cannibalizing) against each other. To combat this issue, you can use a canonical URLs. This will let Google know what page is the most important. Here is a guide on MOZ for how to go about using them.

https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization

However, if the pages are targeting different keywords, you have nothing to worry about.

Hope that helps!

[MissThumann]

To be sure I understand, would you mind casting your professional eye over the two pages. The second is the one I just ranked. The first is my home page. Many many thanks

This is my home page: http://thumannagency.com/

And this is the page I just ranked http://thumannagency.com/business-insurance/liability-insurance ( I updated the verbiage)

[clarkovitch]

This is really a follow-up question, but what if you have several pages targeting slightly different, but related keywords? So to use the example above, what if MissThumann had separate pages targeting:

• auto insurance
• automobile insurance
• california auto insurance
• auto insurance policies
• etc

Would these pages still compete with each other since the keywords are permutations of each other?

[Cody_West]

Looks good to me. Those pages shouldn't be competing in the SERPs.

[MissThumann]

Thank god, that's what I was hoping to hear. Thank you for you time!

[Cody_West]

Google has gotten much smarter when it comes to differentiating between similar keywords. It really depends what the page is about. Best practice is to try to target a unique keyword phrase for each page, but it's totally fine if part of that keyword phrase is used on other pages on your site. If the pages are pretty much the same, you might want to combine the pages, or using a 301 redirect/rel canonical to tell Google what page is the most important.

[MissThumann]

One last thing, I dropped 3 points in my DA. I just heard that there was a new index on the 22nd June. My question is: will this effect my rankings?

[Cody_West]

Yeah the Mozscape index on June 22nd is most likely why your DA dropped. It wasn't a Google algorithm change so it shouldn't affect your rankings.

[MissThumann]

Wow, thank god!