Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization

[brentmitchell]

I'm still having issues with this self-cannibalization...it's referencing my tags as links that are doing this...

should i remove the tags on my posts that are exact keyword matches to my article?

for example, this post generates an 'a' through the on-page optimization tool for the keyword 'kw cares'...they only thing i receive a warning on is the self-cannibalization.

http://www.youdrivethesuccess.com/tag/kw-cares/

Cannibalizing link - "kw cares"

is it best practice not to have your tags match your primary keywords? any guidance is appreciated!

[CodyWheeler]

I think you mean canonicalization.

With the way your permalink structure is set up, no, you don't need to tag your posts with an exact match of the title. You're already going to have an exact match of the title in your URL.

In fact, I wouldn't ever recommend doing this. If you match the title of every one of your blog posts with a tag you're going to have a unique tag out there for every single blog post, with just one article in it. That's not very useful if you ask me and is definitely going to cause duplicate content issues.

I tend to think of tags as more of a way for my user to navigate my blog - which is what they're really meant for. If I click a tag (unless a blog is really young) I expect to see want to multiple articles related to that tag so I can read more about that topic.

One last tip - Check out theYoast SEO Plugin for some help with Wordpress canonicalization management. It really helps when you're using tags and categories - http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

[Thos003]

I agree. You want to use the Yoast plugin and don't index your tag pages. That should help with cannibalizing keywords.

[brentmitchell]

thanks cody...i will take the tag advice and make those changes to my site.

i am, however, referring to self-cannibalization of the links.  the on-page optimization tool is giving me grief because of the tag that is the same as my targeted keyword, saying that i shouldn't have another link with the same keyword.  either way, once i change the tags to not have my target keywords in there, that warning will go away.  thanks again!

[brentmitchell]

so i need to go back and list all my tags as 'no index'?

[brentmitchell]

Yoast seems really cool, but I currently have Genesis from StudioPress. I installed Yoast and it removed all of my meta descriptions.  I would have to go back and and re-enter all meta descriptions to use it....or do you know of a way to keep them when transferring from one plugin to the other?