What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

Keyword cannibalization occurs when you have multiple blog posts or articles on your website that can rank for the same search query in Google. Either the topics they cover are too similar, or you optimized them for the same key phrase. 

There is a chance that posts or stories will rank lower if they are optimized for similar search queries. Most of the time, Google will only show one or two hits from the same domain for a given query. If your site has a good reputation, you might get 3.

SEO keyword cannibalization can occur when you:

• Write and post similar content over time
• Put out a new version of a page without redirecting people to the old one
• Create many paths to the same product category.
• Optimize results that are similar for the same keyword.
• Do not optimize pages in subcategories.

Synonyms

• Competition
• Conflict
• Overlap
• Self-competition

How Bad is the Keyword Cannibalism in SEO?

When you use your own keywords to rank for other things, you're actually fighting with yourself in Google. Let's say you have two posts that are both about the same thing. Google won't be able to tell which story should be ranked highest for that query.

Also, important things like backlinks and CTR are spread out over several posts instead of just one. Because of this, they will likely both rank lower. Because of this, SEO analysis will show a red bullet whenever you try to optimize a post for a focus keyword that you've already used.

How To Identify Keyword Cannibalization?

Don't be concerned if you believe your website is experiencing keyword cannibalization. There are a few easy steps you can take to locate and fix them.

Here are several methods for identifying keyword cannibalization.

1. Search Through Your Website

One easy way to find keyword cannibalization is to look up queries that are related to your business.

For instance, if your business does digital marketing and posts a lot of content about SEO and marketing, use some of the keywords you use a lot to search on Google.

Some of these might look like "SEO strategies" or "marketing tips for beginners."

This kind of search brings up all the web pages that are ranked for this question. Check to see whether two or more of your posts are fighting for the same place.

Learn more about SEO marketing

2. Google-specific Site Search

It will be easier to find keyword cannibalization if you type in the name of your site before pressing "search." This is how it looks in Google: 

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3. Using External Tools

You can also use keyword research tools like Ubersuggest to make things easier and get more information to help you plan your keywords better. This can help you find keyword cannibalization faster and get rid of competing pages from your site with less time, money, and work.

Learn more: e-commerce marketing tools

How to Fix Keyword Cannibalization

There are several approaches to resolving keyword cannibalization. The steps below will help you figure out which plan works best for you.

1. Change how your content is optimized

Change the optimization settings if more than one page ranks for the same keywords and search query. This could mean changing the keywords, cutting down on the number of keywords, or reorganizing the content.

2. You might want to delete some posts

It's not always enough to just re-optimize posts to stop keyword cannibalization. In this case, you might want to get rid of some of the content that is overlapping.

Note: Don't do this if both posts get good traffic from search engines and business leads.

3. Merge the content

If more than one of your posts ranks for the same keyword and you don't want to delete them, you might want to merge them.

For instance, this could mean combining the posts on "how to make money with a blog" and "blogging for beginners" into a single, all-inclusive guide for new writers on how to make money with a blog.

How to Prevent Keyword Cannibalization

When you are trying to get to the core of a problem, keyword cannibalization can gradually eat away at organic traffic and lower search visibility.

Most of the time, keyword cannibalization happens when you write a lot of content.

Here are some best practices that you can use on all pages, new and old, to avoid keyword cannibalization problems:

• Make keyword groups and map keywords to all of your website's pages to make sure they don't cross.
• Set a different search purpose for each page, especially if you're going after keywords that are similar.
• Use internal links wisely to boost page popularity and make sure that important pages are seen.
• Monitor how searches are doing and look for pages that might be copied by other sites by using SEO tools.