Keyword Cannibalization and How to Solve the Problem

Keyword Cannibalization and How to Solve the Problem

Keywords are the pillars of SEO. They help your content to rank on SERPs which in turn help to drive traffic to your website. As one of the leading digital marketing service providers in India, we bring to your attention the problem of keyword cannibalism. This is an aspect that confuses the Google algorithm and ultimately leads you to suffer in the rankings for that keyword or content. So, without further ado, let’s delve deeper into details regarding this problem.

What is Keyword Cannibalism?

If you have two or more pieces of content, like blog posts or articles, that may rank for the same search query on Google, you have a problem of keyword cannibalism on your hands. This occurs primarily because the pieces of content have been optimized for the same keyword or similar keywords.

This means Google’s algorithm will have trouble understanding which of these competing content pieces to display for any search query. For a particular keyword, Google shows a maximum of 2 results from one domain for a particular search query, and if it is a high authority domain, then they may show 3.

So, if you have multiple content optimized for that particular keyword, you’re in trouble.

How to Recognize Keyword Cannibalization?

To check if your website is a victim of keyword cannibalization, all you have to do is type in ‘site:domain.com “keyword” in the search bar of Google and see what ranks. If you have more than one piece of content then you have a problem of keyword cannibalization on your hands.

How to Solve Keyword Cannibalization?

So, now, that you have a problem of keyword cannibalization, what can you do? This digital marketing service provider in India suggests some options:

  • Merge Articles

If your content is really similar, then you can choose to merge the articles and optimize for one keyword only. The focus keyword should be apparent throughout. Since Google adores long-form content, there is no issue of worrying whether your content has become too wordy.

  • Use Internal Linking

To show which articles are more important to you, you need to have a strong internal linking structure. The internal linking will help you to understand which content pieces are important and which are not.

  • Remove One Article

You can remove one article from the set of articles that are being cannibalized. Automatically, Google realizes which article to rank. Hence, you can remove one article and solve the problem of cannibalization. Obviously, remove the one that is least relevant and hasn’t gotten many views.

Wrapping Up

This digital marketing service provider in India, Webicorp, encourages you to reach out for a proper consultation with regards to the content marketing. Partner with us today get eliminate the problem of keyword cannibalization.