Keyword cannibalisation
-
We created a product blog page that was highly optimized for SEO based on a recommendation from a colleague. These are now our best performing pages - however they do not convert as highly as the bona-fide product pages. After further investigation we're concerend that we shouldn't have split our content accross two pages - keyword cannibalisation. Is this correct and should we 301 our product blog pages to the other high converting pages?
-
came to agree on this.. focus on differentiation sans the hannibal lector aspects of keywords.
-
Hi
While I agree with Ryan in how to prevent the issue in the future, I think what you want addressed is what to do about it now (and you can work towards prevention in the future).
By "performing" you mean "ranking" yes? I would suggest asking, why isn't the product page ranking better? This is a sign there is something not working about the product page. It could be the content (maybe there's not enough or maybe its not the right content) or it could be a technical issue (not crawlable etc).
Also, is the blog a wordpress installation in a "/blog/" folder of some sort, or is the entire website on the same platform? Often a WordPress section will rank well, while the custom portaion of a website is not as sound technically.
I'd start with a good look into why the actual product page does not rank for what it should. The blog page ranking is only a sign something deeper is not right.
-Dan
-
Hi Sally.
Without looking at the page it is hard to offer specific advise. If you can share an example product and blog URL, we can gain a better understanding of your implementation.
Using a generic example, let's say you are selling Cheerios.Your primary product page might be titled "Cheerios" and offer all the basic information about Cheerios such as it's ingredients, nutritional facts information, how many ounces are in the box, etc.
If you wrote a blog article, you would not want to duplicate your product page content. It can be very helpful to address topics such as "Cheerios and a Healthy Heart Diet".
Each page on your site should focus one or two keywords or phrases. Internal anchor text links are very helpful in helping avoid cannibalization issues and ensure the correct page is indexed for a given term. The important piece is your blog articles need to have a different focus then your product page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why HTML entities gets crawled as content keywords in Google search console?
My Google search console shows HTML parameters such as div, class, img, src, gif, align as content keywords, but why google crawls HTML parameters as keywords? because of this, I would be losing traffic for my on-page content keywords. Please let me know how to solve this. Thanks, Jenifer
Technical SEO | | Jenifer300 -
Google Webmaster Tools - content keywords containing spam?
Hi all, When I looked in Google Webmaster Tools today I found under the menu Google Index, Content Keywords, that the list is full of spammy keywords (E.g. Viagra (no. 1) and stuff like that) Around april we built a whole new website, uploaded a new xml-sitemap, and did all the other things Google Webmaster Tools suggest when one is creating a Google Webmaster Account. Under the menu "Security Issues" nothing is mentioned. All together I find it har d to believe that the site is hacked - so WHY is Google finding these content keywords on our site?? Should I fear that this will harm my SEO efforts? Best regards, Christian
Technical SEO | | Henrik_Kruse0 -
Keywords, when are you overdoing it in the URL?
Hi guys, I'm auditing a site covering compensation for cancer. Keywords could include: Undiagnosed cancer 20 cancer compensation 10 undiagnosed cancer symptoms 10 cancer misdiagnosis claims 20 cancer claims 10 misdiagnosis of cancer 50 cancer misdiagnosis 70 So, when structuring the URL for the category, this was previously selected: www.site.co.uk/medical-negligence/cancer-misdiagnosis Although sub-pages appear like this: www.site.co.uk/medical-negligence/cancer-misdiagnosis/breast-cancer-misdiagnosis-claim/ 'Cancer misdiagnosis' as a keyword attracts the most traffic, but if we're using it on sub-pages - is there a need to include it twice on all sub-page URLs? With that in mind, would it be better to follow the following format? www.site.co.uk/medical-negligence/cancer-compensation www.site.co.uk/medical-negligence/cancer-compensation/breast-cancer-misdiagnosis-claim/ Or is there a better way to structure this? Thanks in advance guys!
Technical SEO | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
Should you use the keyword for your page in an image?
Hi there! I am currently working on building up the SEO ranking on a page using a specific keyword - dresses. Within this page, we have an online image library full of dresses which are then added to multiple pages determined by brand, colour, type etc for people to search. I am adding hundreds of images all of dresses - I wanted to know if I name these images using the keyword: for example 'dresses_1, 'dresses_2' - will that have a knock on effect on page I am trying to build up and optimise for the keyword 'dresses'??? Any help is appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Jaybeamer0 -
Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL?
This is for an ecommerce site, and the company I'm working with has started selling a new line of products they want to promote.Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL? One of my concerns is losing a little bit of link value from redirecting. Thank you for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
Migrating to New site keywords question
We are converting an old static html ecommerce site to a new platform. The old site has excellent ranking for some of the products. In order to maintain our ranking we will implement 301 redirects from old to new pages (as the urls will change to SEF). I am using Googles Keyword tool (in adwords) and entering each page url of the old site (there are hundreds, I'm doing the top 50 in traffic) and generating a set of keywords, then sorting each list by global searches. For each page, Google's Keyword Tool is giving me hundreds of keywords, but in meta tags there should be no more than 15, so I need a method to choose the keywords on the new page. Question: in the new meta tags should we emphasize the most common keywords (as defined by most global searches) or the least common keywords? I would hate to lose the good ranking for the least common (long tail) keywords.
Technical SEO | | ssaltman0 -
Keywords based domains redirecting to a site.. is it SPAM?
Keywords based domains redirecting to a site is considered spam isn't it ? And if yes, then is it considered spam in all cases whether those domain based sites are related or non related to main site?
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Low relavence for actual keywords in a forum
My website, www.rcnightmare.com has a forum, the most popular entry point for seo traffic. I have tried unsuccessfully to really make the forum's content outweigh the actual content of the "forum" itself. For example google analytics says "post" is my strongest keyword across the site. the forums url is www.rcnightmare.com/forum, I am looking for some answers from people familiar with Vbulletin for things I can change to help this
Technical SEO | | TheTippingPoint0