How do I avoid cannibalization and point search engines to the correct page?
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Currently this page ranks for the phrase "keep calm and carry on"
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Keep-Calm-and-Carry-On-Bandages/3307.010/413160.html
This page is just one product of many in the Keep Calm category. I'd rather this page be the result:
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/gifts/keep-calm-and-carry-on.html
seomoz states:
"To prevent engines from potentially seeing a signal that this page is not the intended ranking target and creating additional competition for your page, we suggest staying away from linking internally to another page with the target keyword(s) as the exact anchor text."
So obviously I should remove the link from the product detail page, but what other things can I do to get the category page to rank higher than the one product page?
Thanks!
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Try a stronger internal linking strategy. Make sure that category page is receives a link from your home page or from pages higher up than the item detail level. According to OSE, your site links to the individual product 10 times, while only linking to the category page 8 times. This may be sending google a message that the item is more important than the category.
Of course, a surefire way to make sure it ranks better is to build a few external links to that category page. See if 'Keep Calm and Carry' links to distributors of their products. Do some google searches for 'where to buy keep calm and carry' and other similar queries to find possible link targets. Find other distributors who sell those products and use OSE to see if there are any sites that point external links to them. Perhaps those sites would be willing to link to you as well.
In short. #1 Make sure the category is well linked internally with links near the home page. #2 Build Links to the higher pages.
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