SERP cannibalization
-
Hi Moz Community,
Recently I've been seeing multiple pages from my eCommerce site pop up in the SERPS for a couple of queries. Usually I would count this as a good thing but since both pages that generally pop up are so similar I'm starting to wonder if we would rank better with just one page.
My example is the query "birthday gifts" Both of the URL's below show up in the search results one after the other on the first page. The URL on the top is our family page and the one below it is our subcat page, you can find both in the top nav. of our site.
www.uncommongoods.com/gifts/birthday-gifts/birthday-gifts (family)
www.uncommongoods.com/gifts/birthday-gifts (subcat)
Both of these pages have different PA's and the subcat page that currently lives in our site nav is actually: **www.uncommongoods.com/gifts/birthday-**gifts?view=all. ****This url doesn't show up in the serps and is rel=canonicaled to the subcat page without the parameter listed above. We use this page in the nav because we think it's a better user experience than the actual subcat page.
If we were to condense all three pages into one would we rank higher?
Any thoughts here would be appreciated.
Thanks
-
Zack,
A change like this on a money term ranking page is always going to incur some risk. But here's what I think after your update.
/gifts/birthday-gifts ---> Better user engagement metrics, higher Page Authority, closer to the root.This curated landing page is best for a user who doesn't know which gift to buy, or even which type, but knows who they are buying it for a her or a him. I would say this describes an good (though it could be better) experience for someone searching for a short-tail, generic phrase like "Birthday Gifts" on Google.
/gifts/birthday-gifts/birthday-gifts
This landing page is more like a typical category page with filters and facets to narrow down the search by gender, price and other features.They aren't the same page right now so I wouldn't use the Rel Canonical tag as a way to consolidate them. The View All category page is good for crawling, but the Curated Landing Page is better for users.
I would come up with a layout that combines the best of both pages and test that option against a percentage of the traffic to the /gifts/birthday-gifts. Basically create a B version of that page, which includes the filtering options available on the category page. These options can affect what shows up in the first carousel for "all birthday gifts" while the curated sections remain on the page for easy self-select (i.e. For Him / For Her).
Assuming that page converts at least as well as the existing A version, I would give serious thought to combining these two pages to see if you can get your highest performing landing page into the #1 spot. Given the relatively lower authority of the existing #1 spot, I think this is definitely doable.
You do risk losing some traffic that would have been more inclined to click on your listing after seeing more than one in the SERPs, but you can offset that with PPC, as you're doing now.
Collect your baselines first. Combine the totals from both pages to see if the consolidation results in more sales.
-
Hi Everett,
Thanks for your response here, I've looked at both pages and our /gifts/birthday-gifts page has way more impressions, higher CTR and higher conversion than our /gifts/birthday-gifts/birthday-gifts version of the page.
So would you still recommend not changing anything or consolidating both pages?
Thanks!
-
If we were to condense all three pages into one would we rank higher?
I would count these as two pages because one points to another with canonical. My first effort would be to improve both of these pages.
I see these pages as #2 and #3 in the organic competition. That is awesome, just absolutely awesome. Nice work!
If you think that your merchandise is distinctly different from the site above you or if you have better prices or better shipping or anykind of a competitive advantage, then I would think twice about sacrificing a page. Instead I would work to improve both pages, making them extremely unique, extremely sticky, extremely clickable in the SERPs, highly optimized for the visitor and highly optimized for the query. I would want to defeat the site above me, hold the competition down at #4 and work to double my money from current traffic. In my opinion and experience, being at #2 and #3 with real potential to move up and improve is more valuable than risking #3 to try to get #1.
I would try to beat them straight out rather than sacrifice a good page and a SERP position for the hope of moving up.
The only time that I would not say that is if the #1 site is clearly superior in every way... visitor experience, prices, value propositions, ranking strength, clickability and more. Amazon above me is an example... but with your competitor, I would mount the attack.
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
-
Why does the order of the keywords affect my SERP? And what can I do to improve?
Hi all, So, if you google "london life coach" my site appears #2 (www.nickhatter.com) But if you google "life coach London" my SERP seems to fluctuate between #3 up to #6. If you google "life coach in London" my SERP is a solid #2/3. I don't get it all. Would someone care to explain? Also, if you have any tips on how I might improve the EAT of my website please do feel free to weigh in! Many thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NickHatster
Nick0 -
Really struggling with serps....
My website is only a week old or so but I have no pages showing on the serps or at least in the first few hundred results! I have many other hobby websites that had pages in the top 100 results instantly and the niche of this new website is tiny and not saturated so it should be up there already! All pages are indexed but non showing in the results. it feels like I have been penalised or something but I don’t see how or why? my website is www.magnet-fishing.co.uk of anyone can see anything obvious that I am missing regards Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Onlytopheadsets0 -
Now that Google will be indexing Twitter, are Twitter backlinks likely to effect website rank in the SERPs?
About a year (or 2) ago, Matt Cutts said that Twitter and FB have no effect on website rank, in part because Google can't get to the content. Now that Google will be indexing Twitter (again), do we expect that links in twitter posts will be useful backlinks for improving SERP rank?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Thriveworks-Counseling1 -
Possible for SERP appearance to change on a keyword?
Hi, We're currently working with a brand name which happens to be the name of a small town in the US (126 population). When Googling the brand / town name, there's a map on the right-hand side of the SERP. (Google Maps, with the town highlighted) We're based in Sweden, and this is even showing up on a search on the Swedish Google. I'm wondering; Is it possible for the map to "be removed" as our brand becomes more known? Does anyone have any similar experiences? Is it a better idea to just switch brand name?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSTRANDELL0 -
Why is my m-dot site outranking my main site in SERPs?
My client has a WP site and a Duda mobile site that we inherited. For some reason their m-dot site is ranking on P1 of Google for their top KWs instead of the main site which is much more robust. The main site might rank beyond page 5 when the generic home page for their m-dot site appears on P1. Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Etna0 -
Internal Search Results Appear in Google SERPS
My friend is running an ecommerce store selling apparels. How can we make internal search results to appear in Google SERPS and rank them? For example: the query is "peplum dress". You type the query into the internal search box and it returns a set of results. In this case, it's product listing. How can we optimize and rank it so it appears in Google SERP? Do we do it the traditional way in terms of links? Say URL is: http://www.asos.com/search/peplum-top?q=peplum+top&r=2 And we build links to it? Some of you may ask why not create a dedicated page for this, the reason being we'd have too many categories if we were to create one for each. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
Wrong page in serps
Hi
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | niclaus78
I've been working with a law firm's website for a couple of years and we've encounter a problem. The pages were divided to target employers and employees separately. For the very targeted keywords mentioning either employees or employers everything was good but for broader less targeted keywords e.g unfair dismissal keywords chooses either one or the other which is a problem. Now I created this ''bridge'' pages where all the topics are explained and then users are directed to and then they will chose where to go. the problem is a lot of off page was created during this years either targeting on or the other. What I plan to do is: -Create a new site map and changing the priority, so the new pages will have a priority 1 and the others less. - bookmarks, articles, etc will be targeting now to the new pages. I place the new pages linked from the home page so that they get the link juice of the home page and they are also now more a category page in the map, so a level up comparing to the previous ones. Questions: 1- Is it worthwhile adding a rel canonical tag to the new pages and rel alternate to previous pages, or if its not a question of duplicate content it shouldn't have an impact? What other things should I take into consideration? Thanks a lot. nico0 -
Cross-linking domains dominate SERP?
Hi, I have been doing some keyword research and noticed two domains properly linking back to each other for almost every piece of content. I thought this was not working any longer but it looks like it works for them. For many competitive keywords, they rank in top 10, and even for some keywords, they rank #1 and #2. PA and DA not more than 36-38. With 3-4 linking root domains, these pages manage to rank in top 10. And the second strategy they have, is to create alternative text to rank for a number of different long-tail-keywords. Seperate pages targeting seperate keywords and the only difference between them is slightly modified text and images. Third is possibly the best, their second domain is an exact match domain name for most keywords linked to this industry. On some SERP's, they have 8-10 results in top 30. SEMRUSH shows %500 growth for both of these domains. So, I guess I should just sit and admire them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gamer070