Worried about keyword cannibalization
-
I've been reading a lot about keyword cannibalization and I'm worried that some of my sub pages may be pulling rank from my home page.
If I'm trying to rank my home page for the keyword phrase "blue widget manufacturing" and I have sub pages with the titles "blue manufacturing services", "blue widget enginnering", "medical widget manufacturing" is it possible that those pages could be causing me to commit keyword cannibalization?
I'm looking at a lot of the results for my keyword phrase and they don't seem to have additional pages with similar keyword phrases.
Wondering if I should change my titles so they don't look as optimized.
-
No worries Brandon - best of luck!
-
Thanks for the reply Matt!
I think I may have identified another page on our site that could be optimized for the same keyword phrase, so I made changes to the title and h1 tags along with a review of the content.
I also discovered that on the home page both my h1 and h2 tags were the same. Not sure how much that may of contributed to our recent drop but I'm going to test that out to see if it was an issue.
-
Hi Brandon,
I had something very similar with my site very recently. Our main area of business is to do with French property, and we realised that we have 4 areas of the site all directly targeting the same keywords. Our homepage was by far the strongest on "French Property" keyword historically, but it suddenly started plummeting down the rankings.
Since we have re-targeted the other 3 areas of the site away from "French Property", our homepage has surged back up the rankings, so there is definitely danger in targeting the same keyword on multiple pages/areas.
The difference between your site and mine however, is that we were targeting almost exact matches. You seem to be targeting slightly different keywords, so I would suggest that you are safe, on the whole. I mean, if you're selling Mars bars, it's going to be pretty difficult not to mention Mars bars on almost every page! One thing I would suggest is your homepage will more often than not rank highest for your site's overall area of business, so make sure you homepage is optimised with your most valuable keyword.
I hope that helps!
Matt
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What place does plural versions of keywords have in keyword research?
Working on doing a massive keyword research project for my sites, one of the things I am trying to figure out is if I should be including plural versions of keywords. For example, should you include yoga mat as well as yoga mats?
Keyword Research | | ShockoeCommerce0 -
Keyword Ranking
I would like to understand how to search for all instances where Johansens is on the 1st page of Google (US/UK) for any keywords that have Portugal, Lisbon or Algarve in them i.e. "luxury hotels portugal". Is there an easy/automated way to do such a search? Many thanks for your support, Doug
Keyword Research | | CN_Johansens0 -
Rank for a keyword with a slightly different designation
Hi guys, I'm a newcomer in the world of SEO. I'd like to rank for the keyword "therapy toy" but I'm used to name my product "therapy smart toy". Is a slightly different designation of my product can affect my ranking position in the short or long term? Thank you for your help 🙂
Keyword Research | | JulienLeka0 -
Narrowing keywords or build more pages - Startup
I provide local services to a number of small cities and am trying to decide the best way to attack local keywords. I need to decide if I should target all 4 cities or narrow it down to 1 or 2. I used the google keyword tool and none of my keywords have enough results to show data so I am left guessing by using the nearest major city and population sizes. Anyway, I have read over and over about how keywords in the title / description are imperative. Well, thats tough to accomplish without being spammy when you offer two services for four cities. I don't think lakeville snow removal, apple valley snow removal, eagan snow removal makes for a good title of a page. Also, it's not an easy task to get any kind of keyword density in the content as well. So how do you recommend I attack this? I have seen sites that create a page for each keyword with basically the same content excpet replacing city x with city y and they do well. I find this spammy and hope that eventually they get penalized for it. I guess I would be willing to do it, but would prefer a more natural solution. One more question, if I do keyword a single city, say Lakeville, what is the prefered way to keyword the home page compared to the service pages. Example, I have a snow removal page that the keywords would be lakeville snow removal and a lawn care page with the same.. So what is the target for the home page? Here is the results of my keyword research. ** Monthy Google Searches** Minneapolis lawn care - 880 Minneapolis lawn service - 590 Minneapolis lawn mowing - 260 Minneapolis Snow Removal - 590 Minneapolis Snow Plowing - 320 Minneapolis Snow Removal services - 58 Service Area Data (Minni has Pop of 385K) Lakeville - Pop;56K Income;86K Apple Valley - Pop;49K Income;74K Burnsville - Pop;60K Income;60K Eagan - Pop;64K Income;74K Northfield - Pop;20K Income;62K
Keyword Research | | dwallner0 -
How to stay organized for keyword research?
As most of you know keyword research can be quite taxing. I have been trying to get organized and do extensive keyword research. But trying to stay organized is proving to be more and more difficult. Can I get some expert views from experts in the community as to how you all go about organizing your research and how you track things over time. Thanks
Keyword Research | | EricMoore0 -
Optimizing for two nearly identical keywords.
Hi Mozzers, So in one of my campaigns I'm trying to optimize for "Personal Trainer Minneapolis" and "Minneapolis Personal Trainer". Would the best tactic be: Develop and optimize two pages. One for each of these similar keywords. (Clearly not the best UX). or Try to optimize a single page for both. Thanks for your thoughts!
Keyword Research | | JesseCWalker0 -
Long Tail Keyword Research
Hi, I have read lots of articles on long tail keyword research and all of it seems to apply to models and makes, i.e. "Canon power shot digital _camera _2MP" However, I work in the interior design industry, which doesn't have models and makes, if you see what I mean. Does anyone have any advice on how to do long tail keyword research for this sector or similar? Thanks for your help. Mik
Keyword Research | | increation0 -
Google Webmaster Keyword Significance.
In my google webmaster tools the most significant keyword google attaches to my site is word 'VAT' as in, Value Added Tax. Followed by Basket. I can see why this is, as the word VAT and Basket is on every product page, but it really is not a keyword I want to target. Does this have any negative effect on other keywords I am targeting? What should I do about this? Here is the site: https://www.loveelectronics.co.uk
Keyword Research | | jcarter0