Worried about keyword cannibalization
-
I've been reading a lot about keyword cannibalization and I'm worried that some of my sub pages may be pulling rank from my home page.
If I'm trying to rank my home page for the keyword phrase "blue widget manufacturing" and I have sub pages with the titles "blue manufacturing services", "blue widget enginnering", "medical widget manufacturing" is it possible that those pages could be causing me to commit keyword cannibalization?
I'm looking at a lot of the results for my keyword phrase and they don't seem to have additional pages with similar keyword phrases.
Wondering if I should change my titles so they don't look as optimized.
-
No worries Brandon - best of luck!
-
Thanks for the reply Matt!
I think I may have identified another page on our site that could be optimized for the same keyword phrase, so I made changes to the title and h1 tags along with a review of the content.
I also discovered that on the home page both my h1 and h2 tags were the same. Not sure how much that may of contributed to our recent drop but I'm going to test that out to see if it was an issue.
-
Hi Brandon,
I had something very similar with my site very recently. Our main area of business is to do with French property, and we realised that we have 4 areas of the site all directly targeting the same keywords. Our homepage was by far the strongest on "French Property" keyword historically, but it suddenly started plummeting down the rankings.
Since we have re-targeted the other 3 areas of the site away from "French Property", our homepage has surged back up the rankings, so there is definitely danger in targeting the same keyword on multiple pages/areas.
The difference between your site and mine however, is that we were targeting almost exact matches. You seem to be targeting slightly different keywords, so I would suggest that you are safe, on the whole. I mean, if you're selling Mars bars, it's going to be pretty difficult not to mention Mars bars on almost every page! One thing I would suggest is your homepage will more often than not rank highest for your site's overall area of business, so make sure you homepage is optimised with your most valuable keyword.
I hope that helps!
Matt
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
-
How to use long tail keyword?
Hi I read in most of the SEO blogs that using longtail keywords can help us in our search rankings. But how can we actually get a traffic from longtail keyword if that particular longtail keyword is not having any search volume. For example, if I wanted to rank for the keyword "SEO" which has a huge search volume of 5,500 per month and if I wanted to concentrate on one of its longtail keyword "SEO basics for beginners" which has average search volume of only 40 per month, how can it help me?
Keyword Research | | sandeep.clickdesk0 -
Keyword Analysis
Is there any way I can find out a list of the top keywords for my site automatically without having to type in certain words myself and wait on the results?
Keyword Research | | meteorelectrical0 -
SEO beginner- How to decide what keyword to go after?
I started a website called Think and Grow Entrepreneur. I'm not sure where to start with Keywords and which ones to go after. Should I input the same keywords over and over my blog to rank in those or should I look at every post as a single entity and try to rank different keywords in each blog. Ideally I would like to rank for the keyword Entrepreneur, but there are already very powerful companies with the same keyword. How should I go about this situation? I appreciate any feedback. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | johnmoon60 -
The best way to do keyword research in different languages
Could anyone give me a little advice about the best way to do keyword research in different languages? French and Spanish specifically (unsurprisingly). Are there any tools or systems available that will give local language keyword variants on English keywords so that I can have a look at real world searches in local languages - rather than what I take to be the best translation (if that makes any sense). Many thanks, Iain
Keyword Research | | iain0 -
Keyword Ranking Issue
For one of my campaigns I have running all the keywords are appearing as having a position > 50, when in fact I know these keywords are appearing on the top 5 pages of Google after a manual search. Can anyone have a solution for this? Thanks
Keyword Research | | dancody20 -
Branded Keywords
I know branded keywords are variations of your company name. However, my company sell a number of exclusive products that have been trademarked so no other company can use that name. Is that counted as a branded keyword?
Keyword Research | | AAttias0 -
Scoring with one keyword in two languages
I would like to read your advice on using 1 keyword in two languages for one landing page. Perhaps it's better to use the keyword in two different language sites, or what do you advise?
Keyword Research | | U-Digital0 -
Tags and Keywords
I am trying to improve the SEO for my client's website - http://www.petmedicalcenter.com. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for improving my h1, h2, etc., tags and keyword usage on the home page? The top 5 search terms are: vet las vegas (most searched) las vegas vets vets las vegas las vegas vet pet hospital las vegas vets in las vegas Any suggestions you have is appreciated. Thanks! -Brant
Keyword Research | | PMC-3120870