Keyword Cannibalization?

You might have noticed keyword cannibalization if you noticed that your website was ranking for a keyword but then suddenly stopped ranking for that keyword. This can happen if you have multiple pages on your website that are all targeting the same keyword. Google may see this as you trying to keyword stuff your website and, as a result, may penalize your website for that keyword. Let's know about keyword cannibalization in detail.

What Is the term Keyword Cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization is the point at which different pages on a site focus on something similar or comparative keywords and contend with one another to hurt the site's natural execution.

 Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple blog posts or articles on your site rank for the same Google search query. Either the topics they discuss are too similar, or you optimized them for the same keyword. When you optimize posts or articles for relative search terms, you're reducing their chances of ranking.

 How Is Keyword Cannibalization Bad?

Keyword cannibalization can be bad for your website because it can lead to confusion for search engines and users. Multiple pages on your site compete for the same keyword, making it difficult for search engines to determine which page is most relevant. This can result in lower rankings for all the pages involved and may waste all the efforts made in On-Page SEO. Additionally, users may get confused and frustrated if they click on a link and end up on a page that doesn't seem to be relevant to their query.

Keyword Cannibalization may:

1. -Decrease the page authority.
2. -Devalue more relevant webpage.
3. -Decrease Conversion Rate.
4. -Decrease domain authority.

How can you tell if your keywords are being cannibalized?

There are a few tell-tale signs:

• -Your website traffic is going down, even though you're ranking for the same keywords.
• -Your page rankings are going down, even though you're ranking for the same keywords.
• -Your organic click-through rate is going down.
• -You can also check for Keyword Cannibalization by maintaining a spreadsheet for all URLs and Keywords.
• -You can also do a particular site search for your website and keywords. For example: ("site:example.com Digital Marketing").

Besides all this, you can also use external tools to simplify the process. Here is the list of some of the most popular tools to identify Keyword Cannibalization:

1. Ubersuggest
2. Semrush
3. Ahrefs

This can help you identify the problem and save your precious time, money, and efforts So you can focus on other essential things.

If you see any of these signs, it's time to check for keyword cannibalization!

 How To Fix Keyword Cannibalization?

After finding keyword cannibalization issues on your website, these are some tips to help you out!

1. Use keyword research to find the proper keywords to target.
2. Make sure each page on your site is optimized for a different keyword.
3. Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions to help search engines understand what each page is about.
4. Use different keyword variations on each page to avoid cannibalization.
5. Monitor your website's search engine rankings to ensure your pages are being properly indexed.

Following these tips can fix keyword cannibalization and improve your website.

Conclusion

When your website gets bigger, there will be a higher chance of you facing these issues. If you are managing E-commerce Website, you should be more careful about particular products and variants pages.

So, make sure to keep track of URLs and Keywords used on particular pages so that you will be prepared and finding the problem will be easy. You can also use "robots.txt" files to knowingly stop the search engine from indexing your webpages.