Is it considered spammy to have multiple pages on the same site optimized for the same keyword?
-
Is it OK to keyword-optimize multiple pages for the same keyword? Is it beneficial, hurtful, or not a major factor either way?
-
Alice - thank you very much for this thoughtful & detailed input! I will put it to use.
-
Alice - thank you very much for this thoughtful & detailed input! I will put it to use.
-
In short, it's not best practices to optimize multiple pages for the same keyword. It's called "keyword cannibalisation" and it's a very old issue in SEO.
Rand wrote this post in 2007, and it's still relevant today!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalizationSince this time, the Panda update began to penalize site that contained many similar pages targeting the same or similar keywords. Examples include pages like:
- Best Plumber Atlanta
- Best Plumber Atlanta Suburb
- Best Plumber Downtown Atlanta
- Best plumber Atlanta Georgia
In general, if you take these pages and make sure they target different topics, you're likely to see your rankings and traffic rise.
-
Optimising multiple pages for the same keyword can be detrimental. This can lead to "keyword cannibalisation", where pages are forced to compete with each other for the same query. This can result in lower overall rankings.
Ideally each page should be optimised for a different keyword - e.g. your homepage could be optimised for "leather shoes" and your category pages could be optimised for "men's leather shoes", "women's leather shoes", "kid's leather shoes" etc,
Having one page for each topic/keyword and making it as useful and comprehensive as possible will attract more links than having three or four different pages about the same topic.
If you're worried about keyword cannibalisation you can use internal anchor text to indicate which page should be considered the authority for that keyword - e.g. your "men's leather shoes" page could have the anchor "leather shoes" that directs back to the home page.
-
In my opinion and understanding it is actually not a bad idea to have multiple pages optimized for the same keyword. It is often used for Reputation Management, first page dominance and other reasons. YOur Primamry goal should first be to get your main page ranked as high as possible. Then once you maximize your efforts there then you can consider multiple pages on page 1.
My experience as a Realtor who just recently started learning more about seo has shown me that major sites use this tactic to push down their competitors and dominate page 1 which I'm assuming is your goal. Ex: Zillow, Trulia, Homes and Realtor all use this tactic to drive down the local Sites like mines. Fortunately I've learned enough to counter their efforts and am on page one for almost all my main keywords.
There are some basic SEO rules to follow though.
- Use White Hat Techniques
- Don't buy links for this or any purpose
- Make Sure each page has unique content and not duplicate content.
You might also want to use Vertical Search for this tactic. Meaning YouTube Videos which can rank high, Images, News Articles that you can post as a free lancer for a local paper.
I hope this helps and good luck.
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
-
What do you do with indexed pages that you can't find any keywords for?
You know those pages that you really need to have for your site that most people get to through the nav bar or maybe internal linking, but never through organic search? The ones where you can't find any applicable keywords with volume or even just a keyword with no volume data that just shows up in the Google autocomplete or People Also Search For. What's the better option? just not optimize the page for any keywords at all, but have Title Tag/Meta Description optimized for CTR just in case OR optimize the page for a very loosely applicable keyword even though it's a a bit of stretch or longshot
Keyword Research | | SearchStan0 -
How to Begin a Web Page
Hi Mozers, At the beginning of a web page, is it better to have a linked Table of Contents of sorts to begin the page (bulleted list of topics that the page addresses that are made up of jump links to different parts of the page) or just start the page with sentences of content? Is one approach better for SEO? Thanks, Yael
Keyword Research | | yaelslater0 -
Selecting keywords
hello, i am using google adwords search terms to find keywords, first of all is that a good practice? If it is then i have the below question: What is most important to take into consideration when thinking of a better keyword: a) impressions b) Most conversotions c) Both in a combination i want to import that keywords in moz pro to see search visibility is that the right way? Which keywords are the most important and how can i chase them? i have to mention here that my adwords account is from 2010 so the data are very much!! Please be specific in for answer thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | anavasis0 -
I understand it's been asked before, however moz staff is telling me keyword's capitalization is treated as a separate keyword.
So there I was looking through my rankings like every other day, when I see a lowercase and uppercase version of a keyword. Most times I see this, I see them with the same rankings, and even researched this about 5 months ago, when I came to the conclusion that google treats them the same way. However, this day I saw them as different ranks, same keyword, only capitalized 1st letter of the 2 word keyword. I asked moz staff about this, as I felt it was an error. But was met with the answer that google does indeed treat these keywords differently. My line of thought was that the rank checker didn't check both the lowercase and uppercase keyword at the same time, and SERPs happened to change when the second word was checked for rank, returning a different rank. So now, I am in doubt again, as to uppercase and lowercase keywords being different or the same in google's eyes? I honestly don't know why a uppercase keyword would have different motive from searcher than a lowercase when many time not, searchers can't even spell the keyword correctly.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
Keyword inside keyword
Hi, I'm a newb and I'm trying to wrap my head around how this keyword thing works. Let's say I find these KWs as part of my research: Acupuncture Acupuncture Clinics Acupuncture Clinics in Gainesville Acupuncture Clinics in Gainesville Florida Does optimizing for Acupuncture Clinics in Gainesville Florida optimize me for all the other terms as well? And furthermore, might I appear for searches like these too: Acupuncture Florida Acupuncture Gainesviile Acupuncture clinics Fl Thanks a bunch!
Keyword Research | | Graphbyte0 -
Newbie Keyword optmization question
I'm optimizing this page: http://gainesvilleholistichealthcare.com/treatment-options/acupuncture/ This is for a local, Gainesville, Fl acupuncturist. The words that show the most search volume on GKT for the city of gainesville are "acupuncture" followed by "acupuncture gainesville fl". Will optimizing for "Acupuncture in gainesville" or "Your Gainesville Florida Acupuncture solution" optimize it for both of these important terms? I guess my question really is, how specific does the match between the searcher's phrase and the KW's I use need to be.
Keyword Research | | Graphbyte0 -
Is there an Optimal number of Keywords i should promote per site?
Good morning, When trying to select my best keywords to promote, i am trying to find the max number of keyword that i will promote and that can still be affective. From your experience, what is this number? Thank you SEOwise
Keyword Research | | iivgi0 -
Should I use Phrase Keywords when doing Keyword Research?
Hi all, I've spent the past couple of days doing some extensive keyword research in Adwords Traffic Estimator, looking for keywords to optimise my pages. I've been searching using EXACT so I get a realistic value but I'm wondering if PHRASE is better suited for research after all its more likely someone will visit my site via a phrase match than exact? What are your thoughts on this?
Keyword Research | | Seaward-Group0