The term “keyword cannibalization” may sound a bit funny at first, but it’s a relatively common problem with websites that have new content uploaded on a regular basis. You of course start off with good intentions, posting new content on your site every week so that your readers will find something of value. But somehow this is not reflected in your Google rankings, your traffic is bad, and your Google ranking is even worse. Why is this happening and what role does keyword cannibalism play?
Unfortunately, websites that report on a certain topic often run into the keyword trap. The same keywords are always used in regularly-published texts. This is confusing for Google. The search engine cannot decide between the different texts, which is why these pages are then just given a mediocre ranking. However, users usually do not look past the first page of the search results, which means that your website’s position is as good as invisible in the rankings. But how will you actually notice that you have become a victim of keyword cannibalization?
There are three indications that could hint at keyword cannibalism.
- Most of the time, you’ll notice because your Google rankings have become poor in some inexplicable way, and changes in this area don’t really seem to improve anything. This could be visible, for example, in the fact that several pages rank on Google and with different positions.
- Or by the fact that there are constantly strong fluctuations in your Google ranking.
- Even if your own website ranks with different URLs for the same term, this can be an indication that content has been written for the same keyword without you even realizing it.
Now, there are three ways to counteract keyword cannibalism.
- The content for the same keyword can be summarized. For this, it’s best to choose the text that is most relevant and provides the most traffic. Optionally, the text content can also be added to.
- Additionally, an anchor link can be used to refer one text to the other in order to redirect users and also draw Google’s attention to the “main text”. The keyword of the secondary text should also be changed. In order for Google to ignore the secondary text in the ranking, it is best to mark it with a “noindex, follow” attribute.
- One last option is that different landing pages can be created for different products that are referred to in the content. Here, too, the keyword in the secondary text must either be changed or changed to a long-tail keyword. For example, the keyword can simply be added to. For future content creation, it’s worthwhile to create a table with keywords that have already been used. This way you maintain an overview of your keywords and avoid duplications.
