Keyword cannabilization ... I just cant face 301'ing good, well aged pages

[Morch]

Hi Mozzers

Ive read a little about your views on cannabilization and would like to run my situation by you.

I have 2 pages lets say (a) and (b) that rank ok for a main keyword. However (a) desite being nice and old is not ageing well and is starting to slip a little - its getting harder to spread the link juice so Ive been thinking should I ditch page (a) and focus solely on page (b) for this keyword. Page (b) seems to be getting better serp value right now.

What I find hard is that page (a) has been around a while (6 years) and I cant bring myself to 301 it assuming thats what you would normally do to avoid cannabilization.

But at the end of the day its a business page and if its failing - yet could inject even more bounce into page (b) it must be worth considering.

What is the best way forward here..?

Im not sure how quick any transition of link juice would take ?

Also what to do with the unique content on page (a)? Seems such a shame to just ditch it.

Cheers fella's

Morch

[DanDeceuster]

You have to think about why keyword cannibalization takes place. You essentially tell Google that two different pages on your site are the important pages for the exact same keyword. This is done by:

1. Having similar content on both pages

2. Having identical anchor text to both pages in your internal links

3. Having identical anchor test to both pages in inbound external links.

Are any of these three taking place? If so, just stop. Link to the pages differently. Alter the content on the pages and the page titles. Make them unique and different so that they target two different phrases. Google will rank them accordingly. Instead of 301ing an old, link rich page, just stop cannibalizing.