Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on the same site compete for the same search terms. Find out how to avoid this post!
I always say that SEO is a game of cat and mouse. While you are developing your online positioning tactics, your competitors are doing exactly the same.
Then you try, try, try to rank for a certain keyword, and nothing … Despair comes and what do you do? You start using the same keyword on multiple pages to increase the authority of the site for that term.
Another very common scenario is to create content for each keyword that has a good search volume, even if they overlap. For example web content, creation of web content, and production of web content.
And what is forming is an immense process of keyword cannibalization. Did you tighten your throat or a knot in your stomach?
Come with me, let’s solve this problem now!

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What is keyword cannibalization?

Remember the chorus of Ivete Sangalo’s music? “Your love is cannibal, it ate my heart, but now I am happy”? Because there are a lot of people cannibalizing the site itself and being happy with their lives, not knowing that the results could be much better.
Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on the same site compete for the same search terms, diluting the relevance of these pages and impairing their positioning on SERP.
To make it clearer, imagine that you have an e-commerce and the keyword “blue sneakers”, which has 1900 monthly searches, appears on three product pages.
The importance of this keyword within the page is measured by a statistical criterion called TF-IDF(Term Frequency – Inverse Document Frequency). The more times it appears in the text, the more importance it has in relation to the others.
By optimizing more than one page with the same term, you indicate to Google that all of them are important for that keyword.
What follows is a mess of algorithms in determining which one is the most important for the term within your site. So, Google doesn’t know which one to display first.
The result of this is that you can have the two pages ranking in the top ten positions on Google, which would be a great scenario. However, what usually happens is that you have a well-positioned page and the other has no or none of the two well-positioned.
Consequence? Loss of qualified traffic, loss of conversions, sales, and visibility for your business.

Here at ÀBrasileira, we usually create a keyword map. It is a spreadsheet in which we list all the content produced, the URLs, and the keywords used in each one of them.
Thus, when creating new guidelines, we avoid cannibalizing keywords with a simple CONTROL + F. That is, if we have doubts if the keyword that has already been used, we search the spreadsheet and that’s it. Doubt resolved.
If you don’t have a keyword map, I suggest that you make a content mapping of your blog and then perform an audit, to check if there are pages competing with each other for the same keywords.
During the audit, you can already create your keyword map and keep the cannibalization of keywords away from your content and SEO strategy.

Keyword cannibalization brings a number of disadvantages for those looking for a good digital presence.
Having the wrong page positioning for an important term can mean losing traffic and people’s interest in the content you share.
With the loss of traffic, your website also loses visibility on the web and, consequently, ceases to gain authority. In addition, your conversion rates are hindered, as people don’t get to your rich material and the content that is a cornerstone of your content strategy.
Similar and competing pages for the same keywords also dilute your backlink efforts, as some people will mention page A and others page B. This is also reflected in the authority of the site as a whole.
Finally, by avoiding keyword cannibalization you are also saving your marketing budget. The reason is simple: you produce less content, with more quality.

The canonical tag is used to tell search engines that all the authority conferred on one page must be passed on to another.
That way, you keep both pages generating traffic. The only issue is that, when showing them in search results, Google will give preference to the one you have indicated as the most relevant.

The 301 redirect sends the user from one page to another automatically. In other words, he does not get to see the content of the page he accesses, as he is redirected to another one.
This feature should be used when the content of a page is already out of date and you want to avoid deleting the URL so as not to generate a 404 error (page does not exist).

If you find that two or more important pages on your site are competing with each other, another way to resolve keyword cannibalization is to re-optimize your content.
What does that mean?
Ask a content and SEO professional to review each page and change the text so that the keyword for which it is ranking incorrectly is no longer relevant.
In many cases, it is necessary to rewrite the content in its entirety, giving a new approach and assigning a new keyword to that page.

If two pages have similar contents, it is possible to unify them into one, making the necessary edits.
In addition to creating more complete content, you eliminate the possibility of having duplicate content on your site.
Don’t forget to make the 301 redirects from the least important URL to the most important one.

Often, we select a keyword certain that Google will think just like us. But that doesn’t always happen. I’ll give you a practical and real example:
Some time ago, we created content optimized for the keyword “personalized content”. As we are immersed in the universe of content marketing, it seemed obvious what people would be looking for when typing that word into the search engine.
And that content never made it past the third page of Google. When we went to analyze what the search engine displays when this search is made, we realized that we are not really going to achieve good positioning and attract traffic with this keyword because it is related to The Sims game.
Want to check it out? Open an incognito tab in your browser and type “personalized content”.
So, before dedicating yourself entirely to creating or re-optimizing content for a particular keyword, do a search on Google. Analyze whether the results displayed in the SERP are consistent with what you are planning.

I always say that all content is alive. It has a value cycle and, like everything in life, it also has an end.
If the page in question does not generate traffic, does not have high-added value content, and does not have backlinks, eliminate it without mercy.
Excessive pages with little or no performance can also hamper your online success, pulling your performance down.
Ready to eliminate keyword cannibalization from your SEO strategy?

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