How to combine 2 pages (same domain) that rank for same keyword?
-
Hi Mozzers,
A quick question. In the last few months I have noticed that for a number of keywords I am having 2 different pages on my domain show up in the SERP. Always right next to each other (for example, position #7 and #8 or #3 and #4). So in the SERP it looks something like:
- www.mycompetition1.com
- www.mycompetition2.com
- www.mywebsite.com/page1.html
4) www.mywebsite.com**/page2.html**
5) www.mycompetition3.com
Now, I actually need both pages since the content on both pages is different - but on the same topic. Both pages have links to them, but page1.html always tends to have more. So, what is the best practice to tell Google that I only want 1 page to rank? Of course, the idea is that by combining the SEO Juice of both pages, I can push my way up to position 2 or 1.
Does anybody have any experience in this? Any advice is much appreciated.
-
Hi there,
Realistically, the tag should be used for duplicates, yes. How "duplicated" a page is, is subjective: a page with 50% of the same content as another page is probably going to count as duplicated as far as Google goes... where that line of duplication acceptability goes isn't something any of us really know.
For pages where the content is totally different besides the header and footer, you technically shouldn't use canonicalisation. However, experiments have shown that Google honours the tag, even if the pages aren't duplicates. Dr. Pete did an experiment when the tag came out (admittedly a few years ago) where he showed that you could radically reduce the number of pages Google had indexed for a site by canonicalising everything to the home page. I personally had a client do this by accident a couple of years ago, and sure enough, their number of indexed pages dropped very quickly, along with all the rankings those pages had. As an ecommerce site that was ranking for clothing terms, this was very very bad. It took about six weeks to get those rankings back again after we fixed the tags, and the tags were fixed within about five days (should have been quicker but our urgent request went into a dev queue).
So the answer would be that Google seems to honour the tag no matter the content of the pages, but I am pretty sure that if you asked a Googler, they'd tell you that it should only be used for dupes or near-dupes.
-
Hi Jane,
Thanks for the advice. One question. I was under the impression that the rel="canonical" tag was for two pages that had the same content to let google know that the page it is pointing to is the original and should be the one to rank. Do you have any experience using them between 2 pages that have totally different content (minus the header and footer)?
Thanks again.
-
If you are happy for the second page to still exist but not rank, you should use the canonical tag to point the second page to the first one. This will lend the first page the majority of the strength of the second page and perhaps improve its authority and ranking as a result. However, the second page will no longer be indexed because the canonical tag tells Google: "ignore this page over here; it should be considered the same as the canonical version, here."
Again, this can benefit the first page, but it does mean that the second page will no longer rank at all. Only do this if you are okay with that scenario.
Cheers,
Jane
-
I'm afraid that there isn't a perfect solution, but there are various options to consider.
1.) The only way to "combine the SEO juice of both pages" is to 301 redirect one of the pages to the other (and add the content from the old page to the remaining one). However, this means that the second page will no longer exist for your website visitors (coming from organic search or not).
2.) You can use a rel=canonical tag pointing from the secondary page to the preferred one to encourage Google to list only the preferred one the pages in search results. In addition, you could use the robots.txt file or noindex meta tag (the meta tag is the preferred option) to block search engines from indexing the page and having it appear in search results. However, this will not "combine the SEO juice."
Assuming that it is crucial that the second page still exist on your website, I would probably not do anything. You appear twice in the first page of results -- great! Why mess with that? I would just focus on doing all the good SEO best practices and earning more links to those two pages to push them higher over time. (Of course, if I knew your exact situation, I would probably have additional suggestions.)
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
-
Totally lost ranking for a targetted page - and dont understand why
I am trying to rank this page https://www.vitari.no/regnskapssystem/visma-net/ for keyword visma.net on google.no. At first it went really well, and I was on first page, ranking as number 8. Then it fell to second page. But then it totally dissapeared. If I go to google.no now and search for visma.net, its not on any of the pages, I have looked through them all. I have used moz and other seo tools to analyze, and try to understand what has happened. But I simply cant understand it. And I cant get rankings back. I've been fighting with this for a long time. However - other pages on the site is ranking for the same keyword. If anyone has an answer leading to me solving this, they will be my hero of the day!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | contenting0 -
Organic keyword ranking drops across the board?
Howdy Moz, I have noticed a common anomaly across the majority of my client accounts (see attached image). Have lost thousands of organic keywords worldwide? (no loss in UK rankings though which are the ones that matter) Has there been an algo update? Seems strange. Thanks, Joshua nYP3i
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AscentGroup0 -
Inner pages not ranking well
Hi Guys I'm currently working on a website and scratching my head. It seems certain pages of the website rank absolutely fine. The homepage, certain pages on footer and the primary navigation pages are ranking fine. Pages, however, that sit on the inner navigation (e.g 3rd level navigational pages) - do not rank well at all. Looking in webmaster, it is apparent these are fluctuating in and out of the Google index - sometimes they are there - sometimes not. I fully understand issues with Google penalties but I don't believe this is case as other pages are ranking fine. Link building has been done to these pages but to no effect. We have also increased internal links e.g by putting the pages on the footer - but still nothing. One thing that may impact the ranking is possibly the URL structure The website URLs are all www.Example.com/widgets - even if they sit on the 3rd level of the user navigation. Could this be a reason why? Would it help if 3rd level pages had the URL structure www.Example.com/services/widgets ? If anyone can provide help that would be great!!! thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?
Hi, everybody In the Moz ranking tool for one of our client's (the client sells sport equipment) account, there is a trend where more and more of their landing pages are product pages instead of category pages. The optimal landing page for the term "sleeping bag" is of course the sleeping bag category page, but Google is sending them to a product page for a specific sleeping bag.. What could be the critical factors that makes the product page more relevant than the category page as the landing page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo0 -
Servers matter for different domains for same keywords?
We have 3 domains in the same industry, but unique content on each site. The whois info is private, but the domains are all under the same owner registrant info. In terms of rankings, does it matter if we move them all into the same RackSpace cloud account? Will Google know the relationship somehow and if they do, will they care?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheDude0 -
Keyword Planner - Landing Page Results
When i enter a landing page (a site page) in Google KW Planner Tool it returns an interesting set of results that I would like help with please? The first few results are relevant to that page BUT then it shows KW results that are for any page of my site. The fact that its reporting on the whole of my site rather than just that page - does it matter? ie will google be able to work it out which is the target page vs links to the rest of my site through the site navigation? The site had been live since June 2013 and we struggle to get on Page 1 SERPs, for most of our top themes and i wondered whether this could be a contributing factor? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Should I build links to the home page or a url containing the keyword?
I run an IT company and the company name does not contain the key word I am trying to rank on. I also have a bunch of pages with page rank that containing the actual keywords, for example: http://www.mycompanyname.com/tech-support/locations/brighton My target keyword is "Tech Support Brighton" My Home page is PR4 and my location based pages are PR3. My plan was to build 3 or 4 location pages for the locations we provide tech support for and target location based keyword Anchor text to these URL's e.g "Tech Support Brighton" and then for the home page build links that have the anchor text "Tech Support". Does this sound sane? Many Thanks, K
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOKeith0 -
Keyword Ranking Question
I have recently hired a SEO company to help with our keyword. My question is what are the best tools to use to verify what that are reporting. I can do an unpersonalized search, but I am likely still getting the my local results. I have been using the SEOmoz rank tracker in the past but for some reason it is not able to retrieve results over the past day or so. Are there any other good tools to check ranking for an exact url at the for non-localized, non personalized results? Thanks for the suggestions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilityhealth0