Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Keyword Self- Cannibalization

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Keyword Self- Cannibalization

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    6
    1606
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • semvibe
      semvibe last edited by

      I have a question about Keyword Self Cannibalization.  I have a web page which is targeting the main keyword as "sarees". But this same page has internal linking from the keywords Benarasi Silk Sarees, Silk Saree, Traditional Sarees, cotton sarees,etc to their respectve pages. We are optimizing those pages separately for their respective keywords as well.

      When I run on-page report card for these web page from seomoz tool, I got an error says "Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization".

      Is this due to the internal linking from these keywords?

      Can anybody recommend a solution for this problem?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • ninjamarketer
        ninjamarketer last edited by

        Ryan answered this question pretty well and I would like to add few points to it

        1. As long as your site architecture is organic and designed for the user you should not be too concerned about page -keyword targeting.

        2. Avoid have too many links on the page. Typically, there should not be more than 150 links on a page.

        3. Make sure to have equal balance of content and images on the site.

        4. Backlinks with good distribution of anchor text.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RyanKent
          RyanKent @semvibe last edited by

          The problem is that page is not simply targeting "sarees" but many other keywords. Your title shows as: Saree | Indian Saree | Designer Sarees | Wedding Sarees | Bridal Sarees | Sarees Collection: cbazaar.in

          You only want to include the phrases in the title which you are targeting.By including "Wedding Sarees" you are indicating this page is focusing that phrase. Then when you link the term "wedding sarees" to another page, search engines will get confused and you are cannibalizing the term.

          My recommendation would be to change your title to something like "Sarees | cbazaar.in".

          I also noticed your landing page has the highest number of links I have ever seen on a page, 800+. I realize you want to capture as much search traffic as possible but you are going about it the wrong way.

          I really love the concept of your site. I know your product is a great niche with a lot of popularity. Your site needs quite a bit of SEO work. I would highly recommend hiring a professional. I think you would be amazed at how much additional traffic you can earn with some adjustments.

          f you decide to go it alone, I recommend beginning with the SEOmoz guide.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • EGOL
            EGOL last edited by

            I believe that if you have a page targeting a single keyword "sarees" and you link out to many other pages that have information about specific types of sarees that you have a strong presentation.

            I don't think that it would be smart to have a page about sarees and be afraid to link to other pages using that word.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • semvibe
              semvibe @RyanKent last edited by

              http://www.cbazaar.in/saree/pt-sa.html

              RyanKent 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • RyanKent
                RyanKent last edited by

                It sounds like you understand cannibalization and have a plan to avoid it.

                Can you offer a link to the page?

                I am curious as to your page title and other factors. Are you ever using anchor text for "sarees" alone?

                semvibe 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Veptune

                  Keyword appearing on almost every slug of product pages = over-optimizatio

                  slug product pages

                  Hello all, I have an online store, let's say for example I sell forks of all kinds and colors. So naturally, I have 'product category' pages with titles and slugs like: Big forks
                  Small forks
                  Plastic forks
                  Red fork
                  etc.. And plenty of product pages with slugs and H1 like: Small red fork
                  Large plastic fork
                  18th-century fork
                  etc... Some category pages are well-ranked, others are not, the same goes for product pages. The problem is that for the main keyword, 'fork' (exact query in the search console), my site is completely absent. Google should logically have referenced my homepage (which has links to all categories) for this main keyword. I have also optimized the page for it, without overdoing it. I wonder if it's not because I have a lot of pages with 'fork' in the slug, and perhaps Google thinks it's too much (even though it's logical for this word to be present in all product pages because it's an essential word to describe the product). I wonder if I should not modify half of my product pages to remove the word 'fork' from the slug...(only from the slug, without touching the H1 because removing the word 'fork' would remove its meaning). Do you have any experiences with this kind of issue? I wouldn't ask the question if my homepage was behind the competition, but it's completely absent. Thanks

                  On-Page Optimization | | Veptune
                  0
                • JamesDavison

                  Value of using spaces or no spaces on product category page varient keywords

                  keywords page grader several search terms category page

                  Hello, all fellow Mozzers,
                  I have taken over a project and this account, so can't change the username according to MOZ.🙃 We run an eCommerce website, and to me, some of the content is conflicting as some pages have more information content than what I would put in a commerce page, but this is how the boss wants it to work, personally, I would separate the content out.
                  The page I'm working on:
                  https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/205-70-14.html
                  and this is an example of the rest of these types of pages, I will be tackling:
                  https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/tyres/125-15.html I was tasked to improve SEO ranking, when using the MOZ page grader I had a score of 24 out of 27 83% SEO score and 3-page problems. 7th position in Google for the search term 205/70 R14 As it is a generic product listing page, It was pointless to add to the URL and the Internal links I can't reduce as these are links to products, so I went to reduce the
                  keyword stuffing and making the page content more natural, this improved the page to 25 out of 27, 87% SEO score and 2-page problems. Improvement to 3rd position in Google, but he wants to chase 1st place to be above his competitors, which is fair enough. It turns out that in the past, they have used this type of page to try and get a high ranking for several search terms, as it is a different variation on a tyre size terms are:
                  205/70 R14, 205/70R14, 205/70 R 14
                  205/70 X 14, 205/70X14, 205/70 X14
                  and so on for all the different ways you can search for this tyre size. He is also convinced Google will see these as different search terms, and while I agree to an extent, this causes Keyword Stuffing on the page, which in turn was harming the rankings. Each product listed on the page already has its own title 205/70 R14, 205/70 HR14 and so on, so my question is. What is the best practice for writing content on these types of pages to gain high rankings for several Keywords, and what value does writing the same keyword with spaces and no spaces have? Any help or advice is welcome, so I have a better understanding of how to approach this for this page and the rest of the site. Cheers Mal

                  On-Page Optimization | | JamesDavison
                  0
                • LPantell

                  How to Incorporate Awkward Keyword Phrases

                  seo tactics keywords

                  Certain keywords are good choices for my website (high CTR, low difficulty, high volume), but they would be very awkward to use in my website content. For example, "therapist near me" is a popular search term, but it would be very strange for me to use those words in that order in my content (I am a therapist). Any thoughts about this are welcome.

                  On-Page Optimization | | LPantell
                  0
                • woodchuckarts

                  How can a page rank for keywords that it does not have on it?

                  I have a client that is ranking in the top 10 for several keywords on their homepage. Their site has no purposeful SEO in it, there is barely any text on the homepage at all and none of the text are the keywords it is ranking for.

                  On-Page Optimization | | woodchuckarts
                  2
                • cinzia09

                  How many keywords should I optimize a page for?

                  Hi, There is a lot of debate going on on whether to use a single keyword per page or multiple keywords per page. What I know for sure is that it is not advisable to repeat the same exact keyword in different pages. I need to optimize product pages, categories and pages for an online store and still do not know if it is better to: 1-work with one main keyword per page plus latent semantic keywords, 2-to optimize a page for multiple different keywords (2 to 4 keywords) which are strongly related to the main topic or to the product sold in a particular product page 3- use single keyword for each page (and no more than one keyword per page). Some seo gurus argue this is the best way to get higher ranking for that particular page in the serps. My personal opinion would be 1 or 2, but I would like to hear what you suggest and think about it. Any suggestion or opinion is welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance

                  On-Page Optimization | | cinzia09
                  0
                • Mike.Bean

                  Keyword Stuffing Question

                  Say your on a e-commerce category page "Shirts" every lower level category has "shirts" in it such as: T-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweat shirt, v-neck shirt, and so on. Is this page going to be penalized in google for the keyword "shirts" just because it is in the title and on the page a thousand times because i'm targetting words like "long sleeve shirt? and if it is, will the "long sleeve shirt" keyword be negatively affected as well? Answer much appreciated,
                  Thanks in advance.

                  On-Page Optimization | | Mike.Bean
                  0
                • dawsonski

                  Is it necessary to add keywords to all of your pages?

                  Hi Everyone he company I work for has  just built a new website  with approximately 87 pages/sub pages. Should i be looking to add keywords and descriptions  to all of these pages, via the allocated areas in the back end of the site?  I am using "google's key words" tool  to generate relevant key words. If any one has any advice it would be much appreciated. Thanks for you help Regards Pete

                  On-Page Optimization | | dawsonski
                  0
                • BobGW

                  301 redirect and then keywords in URL

                  Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?

                  On-Page Optimization | | BobGW
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.