What to do with repetitive content

[rich.owings]

Hi,

I recently took over a site from another SEO firm. They created lots of articles targeting the same terms. The articles aren't bad but I fear they could dilute the site's ranking power for a given term. I don't want to give away the specific industry, but let's say they have eight pages targeting the term "______ billing software." I'd rather focus their resources on ranking one page for that term. Does that make sense? And if so, how do I do that? The company has a writer that can see if any of the content is good enough to add to their primary ______ billing software page. Would you 301 redirect all these pages to the one you want to rank, or would you canonicalize them? Or am I way off base in my thinking?

[rich.owings]

Thanks EGOL. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. The competition definitely isn't thin, so I think combining things is best. So would you 301 redirect those URLs or leave the pages up and canonicalize them?

The accounting guide idea is interesting. I'll give it some thought. The company offers electronic medical records software for a niche medical field, so it includes billing, scheduling, patient records, and practice management.

[EGOL]

I don't have any problem with multiple articles targeting the same keyword on one website as long as they are extremely different and they also target different secondary keywords.  If competition is thin you might be able to get #1, #2, #3, #4 for that keyword in google with multiple pages targeting the same keyword.  I have that for the main money keyword for one of my sites.  I have another site that has a dozen #1, #2, #3 rankings and scores of #1 and #2.

Before I produce a second article for any topic, I make sure that my first article is comprehensive, substantive, well illustrated, kickass and no less than the best on the web for that topic.

If I purchased or inherited a site with many articles targeting the same keyword then I would try to combine a few of them into the best comprehensive article about the topic.

If I was advising a company that produces some kind of software who has all of this duplication, I would tell them to start creating "how to do it".... "how to understand it"... practical stuff content that helps people use your software and shows how your software is better than the competition.

I would be publishing the reference book for accounting in that industry.  Each industry has its own accounting situations.  I would have the Bible of Dairy Queen (or whatever) accounting published on my website and everybody everywhere in that industry would be talkin' about my site and referring their bosses, employees, and other staff to my website where they can find everything anybody ever asked about Dairy Queen accounting.

Why Dairy Queen?  answer here...    And after you have read that, you will understand why accounting Bibles are needed for each industry.