Is it considered spammy to have multiple pages on the same site optimized for the same keyword?
-
Is it OK to keyword-optimize multiple pages for the same keyword? Is it beneficial, hurtful, or not a major factor either way?
-
Alice - thank you very much for this thoughtful & detailed input! I will put it to use.
-
Alice - thank you very much for this thoughtful & detailed input! I will put it to use.
-
In short, it's not best practices to optimize multiple pages for the same keyword. It's called "keyword cannibalisation" and it's a very old issue in SEO.
Rand wrote this post in 2007, and it's still relevant today!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalizationSince this time, the Panda update began to penalize site that contained many similar pages targeting the same or similar keywords. Examples include pages like:
- Best Plumber Atlanta
- Best Plumber Atlanta Suburb
- Best Plumber Downtown Atlanta
- Best plumber Atlanta Georgia
In general, if you take these pages and make sure they target different topics, you're likely to see your rankings and traffic rise.
-
Optimising multiple pages for the same keyword can be detrimental. This can lead to "keyword cannibalisation", where pages are forced to compete with each other for the same query. This can result in lower overall rankings.
Ideally each page should be optimised for a different keyword - e.g. your homepage could be optimised for "leather shoes" and your category pages could be optimised for "men's leather shoes", "women's leather shoes", "kid's leather shoes" etc,
Having one page for each topic/keyword and making it as useful and comprehensive as possible will attract more links than having three or four different pages about the same topic.
If you're worried about keyword cannibalisation you can use internal anchor text to indicate which page should be considered the authority for that keyword - e.g. your "men's leather shoes" page could have the anchor "leather shoes" that directs back to the home page.
-
In my opinion and understanding it is actually not a bad idea to have multiple pages optimized for the same keyword. It is often used for Reputation Management, first page dominance and other reasons. YOur Primamry goal should first be to get your main page ranked as high as possible. Then once you maximize your efforts there then you can consider multiple pages on page 1.
My experience as a Realtor who just recently started learning more about seo has shown me that major sites use this tactic to push down their competitors and dominate page 1 which I'm assuming is your goal. Ex: Zillow, Trulia, Homes and Realtor all use this tactic to drive down the local Sites like mines. Fortunately I've learned enough to counter their efforts and am on page one for almost all my main keywords.
There are some basic SEO rules to follow though.
- Use White Hat Techniques
- Don't buy links for this or any purpose
- Make Sure each page has unique content and not duplicate content.
You might also want to use Vertical Search for this tactic. Meaning YouTube Videos which can rank high, Images, News Articles that you can post as a free lancer for a local paper.
I hope this helps and good luck.
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
-
Authority site targeting multiple similar keywords
Hi! I found a niche I'd really like to work on. I was initially targeting a longtail keyword but there are so many available for this niche I decided to just make an authority site instead. My plan is to have multiple pages with each page targeting a separate long tail keyword in the niche. There's probably going to be over a 100. Let's say for example it's an organic gardening niche. The website will be setup for the entire niche and the page titles will be structured as such: Best Organic Gardening Soils Best Organic Gardening Tools Best Organic Gardening Seeds I'd prefer it to be setup this way so I can target traffic for the term with and without "best". I'm wondering if this sounds a bit spammy or is acceptable? Any other ideas as far as targeting similar longtail keywords in the same niche on a single site? Thanks so much!
Keyword Research | | Kusanagi170 -
How can I easily track multiple keywords for multiple pages?
We are creating landing pages to target keywords, and would like to be able to have something set up so at a glance we can see each page's rank for its targeted keyword. For example, if we have pages with the URLs of example.com/sites/purple-widgets, example.com/sites/purple-widgets-for-cheap, example.com/sites/cheap-purple-widgets, etc., we'd like to see the rank of each of those pages for their respective keyword ("purple widgets", "purple widget for cheap", "cheap purple widgets", etc.). Any suggestions?
Keyword Research | | brandonRT0 -
Keyword In Page Title
Broad Keyword Usage in Page Title Easyfix <dl> <dt>Page title</dt> <dd>"The Sea Trout Inn in South Devon, Near Totnes - Luxury Bed and Breakfast and Restaurant - Contact Us"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Search engines consider the title element to be the most important place to identify keywords and associate the page with a topic and/or set of terms. SEOmoz's correlation research has also shown that rankings are heavily influenced by keyword usage in the title tag.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Employ the keyword in the page title, preferrably as the first words in the element.</dd> <dd>The keyword is Hotels Totnes, how can I put this in a page title without it looking stupid ?</dd> </dl>
Keyword Research | | Stoz0 -
Creating a new page versus adding to existing page (for targeting a keyword phrase)
What are your considerations when deciding whether to create a brand new page versus adding content to an existing page when targeting a new keyword phrase on your site? My thought is that if it is mildly competitive, a new page would make more sense since you can optimize the title tags and URL. But if it is long tail and low competition, you would be better off to add a paragraph to an existing page to minimize diluting your website by adding more pages.
Keyword Research | | ProjectLabs0 -
How To Optimize Similar Product Pages
I found some really good resources on here regarding how to optimize for product pages, however I have one question. We carry about 20 different products lines. EX: Cold Saws, Band Saws, Press Brakes etc. For the cold saws product line we have Manual Cold Saws and Automatic Cold Saws. Same for Band Saws. Since the products are very similar and people are technically only search for manual cold saws, manual coldsaws, manual cold saw machines etc. Each product line has between 10 and 50 machines. How do we optimize each product page for 1 keyword phrase.? Can I have about 5 manual cold saw pages target the same keyword phrase or does each page have to be targeting completely different key phrases? like, manual coldsaws, manual cold saws, affordable manual coldsaws, etc.
Keyword Research | | hfranz0 -
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 -
Keyword Updates
I have a list of keywords in a campaign that I need to update. I use the keyword report card to review those keyword performance by page. I dont currently see a way to update those keywords, I only see the option to add or delete. I don't want to delete and re-enter because then I will lose that "mapping". Is there a way to simply update a keyword?
Keyword Research | | webdecorators0 -
Page Title Optimisation
We have a fairly large client for which I look after the analytics, and just recently the SEO also. This celebrity client already recieves near a million visitors per month, 96% of the time for her name. I'm using Googles keyword tool and search trends for insights as to what people are searching for As I get further and further into optimising different pages, I'm running out of ideas for Unique page titles to drive additinal traffic as they have all been covered. {high volume exact searches that is} I'm not sure if I'm over using her name also: for example most of the clients pages start with: "First name last name Keyphrase" should I be using her first name last name on every title? Thanks in advance for what seems like a simple task, however when your up against it for the first time, it's a "Do I Don't I situation!" Kind Regards Sean
Keyword Research | | Yozzer1