Am I self canabalizing?
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Hi All,
I'm continuing my search to see why my ranking is slipping and slipping; I thought maybe self cannibalizing is an issue. I guessed this as my competitors don't have three pages ranking highly for a particular key word; it is just the one page that ranks highly for them - for all of the important keywords. I have three sometimes four pages ranking (albeit not highly ranking) for a particular keyword.
An earlier post said that the pageranker tool on SEOMOZ highlighted self cannibalization; I've checked my pages on this tool and they all get A's and passed the cannibalization check.
Does this Absolutely mean that cannibalization is not theproblem for me?
Thanks,
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Hey,
I don't think you are safe from an issue with cannibalization just because the one tool says you don't have that. From the situation described, it sounds like you do have issues on your site with overlapping content and that could be hurting your ranking (as could other factors too, obviously). The best way to find out is to remove the content that you think is overlapping or self canabalizing and then see if you regain rankings.
I'm not certain how the cannibalization check happens in SEOmoz's on page tool, but I have seen instances where cannibalization is missed if those pages are not linked together. As I understand it, that on page tool checks only the one page as opposed to an in depth site crawl.
Hope that helps.
Matthew
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