Keyword Cannibalization?
-
I am not quite sure I totally understand the concept of keyword cannibalization. I have seen the SEO Moz Snowboard example... I tried to apply the concept but the on-page ranking sees a category page of mine with KW cannibalization. By the way, I still get an A for the targeted KW.
I have an e-commerce site, one category page targets 'wool sweaters' and a product page for example is : 'chunky-knit wool turtleneck sweater' (there are 8 products total in this category all are flagged Cannibalizers). I didn't think KWC would be an issue...ranking seems to be effected judging ranking for other category pages w/o KW cannibalization issues.
So, my question I guess is KW cannibalization really a big deal? What is taken into account when judging KW cannibalization. Title Tags? URLs?
Thanks in advance
-
thanks Takeshi really useful reply, but i would like to advise Eric, that he should not need to assign category canonical link tag in product pages as product has its own somehow authority.
If want to prioritize category page then you need to improve overall on-site with regard to increase more importance than product page for that specific search terms or phrases. -
Correct except for the nofollows. You almost never want to use nofollow links pointing to your own site. And try to put as much of the content you have on your product pages onto the category page.
-
So, suposing that I want to rank my category page and not my product page, You guys think that any of the follow measures are reasonable?
-
use a canonical tag in my product page pointing to my category page,
-
use nofollows links from my category page to my product pages and do the inverse concerning my product pages.
-
atribute a higher priority to my category page in my sitemap.
hugs,
-
-
Great, thanks a lot. That makes sense as to why I can get an on-page 'A' score yet ultimately could be doing more harm than good.
-
Keyword cannibalization in a nutshell: Google only shows 1 result from your site for any given query (unless it thinks you're REALLY relevant). That means you want the page that shows up to be the one with the greatest relevance and conversion potential. If you have multiple pages that target the same keyword, Google could end up confused and display the non-optimal page over your desired landing page.
Title tag, url, and on-page content all play a role in keyword cannibalization.
It's only a problem if you're finding that the non-optimal page is ranking over your optimal one. For example, if your category page ('wool sweaters') is outranking your product page ('knit wool turtleneck sweater') for the search team "knit wool turtleneck sweater", then you have a problem. In that case, make sure you improve your internal & external linking to the product page, and make sure it has higher quality, targeted content than the category 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
-
I have recently re-done my website. My buyers guide and my category page are ranking for keywords I'm after.
I have recently re-done my entire site (only a few days). I believe Google is still re-crawling and updating (however, the amount of movement on other searches has been significant). My buyers guide is ranking very high for its intended keywords, as well as high for the keywords of the category page. Both are at the beginning of the second page and I wonder if its dragging me down. What do you think I should do? Is it to early to take action as everything has been completed redone.
Technical SEO | | Code2Chil0 -
Drop in keyword rankings with a multi-region website
Hi everyone, I know that variations if this question have been asked on this forum and have been answered by Google also. Google's response seems to be clear that "Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries." This was our approach when launching a new .co.nz website recently to coincide with us opening a new office in Auckland. Our original site is still our .com.au site. We went with a new domain name over a sub directory or sub domain for the reasons in the same Google article. After launching the NZ site in February and steadily growing some rankings, we've noticed in the last week or so a drastic drop in our keyword rankings (and traffic) for no apparent reason. There are no apparent issues in Search Console or with the Moz Site Crawl, so I'm wondering what's going on? I know rankings can fluctuate widely, especially when you're not on page 1 (which we're not) but the sudden and drastic drop did concern me. Currently, our AUS site's content is basically being replicated on the NZ site (e.g. blog posts, about us, company history, etc.). I just wanted to bounce it off you all to see whether you think it could be the "duplicate content" on the NZ site, or could it be something else? I'd really appreciate your input! Cheers, Nathan
Technical SEO | | reichey0 -
Looks like keyword stuffing, but it isn't
(There was a similar older question on the forum, but it wasn't really answered so please forgive me if this looks like a repeated question) Looks like keyword stuffing, but it isn't We have a massive web store with 80k "commodity products" (and this amount will only increase) which aren't sold the same way normal products are sold (i.e. by brand and model). Commodity products are sold by specification, therefore their product names are actually descriptions of the product. In our case, industrial fasteners (nuts, bolts, washers, screws, etc) sold in bulk. If you click on the link below, you will see that our catalog involves a tremendous amount of repetition, where the products all appear the same, but are varying by dimensions and/or package quantities. The solutions the web store software offers to solve this problem cause issues for us (i.e. displaying the dimensions and quantities ONLY under a common header) but more importantly, we are concerned that search engines are seeing this as keyword stuffing and penalizing the pages. http://www.aspenfasteners.com/Step-Bolts-Inch-Standard-s/407.htm If we can't change the presentation of the page, should we be concerned and if so, how do we let a search engine know that the repetition is legitimate?
Technical SEO | | AspenFasteners0 -
Parked former company's url on top of my existing url and that URL is showing in SERPs for my top keywords
I have the URL from my former company parked on top of my existing URL. My top keywords are showing up with the old URL attached to the metadsecription of my existing URL. It was supposed to be 301 redirected instead of parked but my web developer insists this was the right way to do it and it will work itself out after google indexes the old URL out of existence. Are there any other options?
Technical SEO | | Joelabarre0 -
GWMT -- Top URLs for keyword is not the homepage
Hi Everyone - In google webmaster tools, in the Content Keywords section, when I click on a link of all of my top keywords they display a single "Top URLs". The URL which they display is not my homepage but a random category landing page of our e-commerce website. Should I be worried about this? Does this suggest that google is ranking this one URL ahead of our homepage?
Technical SEO | | Santaur0 -
Penalty on two primary keywords
Hi Seomoz, I have been strugling to get www.texaspoker.dk out of what seems to be a keyword specific penalty (we are on page 5 on "poker" and "online poker"). First I thought it was Penguin related, but I'm not so sure any longer. I have removed all the bad links to my site possible (it's not easy to get other people to remove links, I can tell you), and I have reported all the links that I would like google to "ignore" (reconsideration request) ... all in all I have requested for reconsideration 5 times, and - despite some small changes - I got the same answer every time. We violate the quality guide lines and we should be looking for unnatural links pointing to our site. If any one - by having a look at our site - have any idea what could be wrong, please don't hold back, we would love to hear your point of view. Right now we are in the middle of making our partners take off their site wide links to us (the partners you'll find if you click the flags to the right in the top of the home page). On Texaspoker.dk we only link to the partners from the home page, but maybe we should consider to take of even these links? No one is really clicking on them anyway. Another thing, which is only under consideration, is to ask our partners from Betxpert.com (with whom we have exchanged our news feed - you will find their feed if you schroll down the home page) to set the feed to "no follow" and do the same our selves. What do you think of this thought? As far as I can see, there is nothing wrong with the on page optimization, but maybe some one can see what I don't see? Again - what ever thoughts you guys may have - shoot ... i'm ready to take all bulets 🙂 Thanks in advance! Nicolai, Texaspoker.dk
Technical SEO | | MPO0 -
Use target keyword on several page titles or homepage only?
If I want my homepage to rank for a keyword (ie "red widgets"), does it support or dilute the homepage's rank if I use the keyword on other pages? I can see it working either way: The search engine looks at your site, sees that the target keyword is used throughout the site, and ranks the site higher as a result. Using the keyword on several pages makes it so none of them stand out, and ultimately it's harder to rank highly. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Kyle_M0 -
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?
Technical SEO | | JohnHillman0