Best practice to avoid cannibalization of internal pages

[laboiteac]

Hi everyone,

I need help from the best SEO guys regarding a common issue : the cannibalization of internal pages between each other.

Here is the case :

Let's say I run the website CasualGames.com. This website provides free games, as well as articles and general presentation about given categories of Casual Games.

For instance, for the category "Sudoku Games", the structure will be :

• Home page of the game : http://www.casualgames.com/sudoku/
• Free sudoku game listings : (around 100 games listed) http://www.casualgames.com/sudoku/free/
• A particular sudoku game : http://www.casualgames.com/sudoku/free/game-1/
• A news regarding sudoku games : http://www.casualgames.com/sudoku/news/title

The problem is that these pages seem to "cannibalize" each other. Explanation :

In the SERPS, for the keyword "Casual Games", the home page doesn't appear well ranked and some specific sudoku games page (one of the 100 games) are better ranked although they are "sub-pages" of the category.. Same for the news pages : a few are better ranked than the category page..

I am kind of lost.. Any idea what would be the best practice in this situation?

THANKS a LOT.
Guillaume

[laboiteac]

Thanks Adam.

I started to use breadcrumbs a few months ago but I guess It was too late.. The website is jeuxcasino.com, it provides free casino games. The main category page is for instance :

http://www.jeuxcasino.com/machine-a-sous/ for the "machine a sous" games.

But when I google the word "machine a sous", I have individual game pages or articles like this http://www.jeuxcasino.com/machine-a-sous/news/348-le-travail-technicien-machine-sous...

[AdamThompson]

If you want the category page to rank for the keyword instead of an individual game page:

• Make sure the category page is well-optimized for that keyword
• Have all the game pages link to the category page (i.e. use breadcrumbs)
• Ensure the category page is linked to from the homepage
• Consider reducing the optimization of the game page(s) for the particular keyword

Without seeing the actual site and pages, that's all I can think of at the moment.