Is this keyword cannibalization?
-
I have a product page and our home page ranked for the same keyword.
On August 6th the product page was ranked #14 then plummeted to #60. On August 13th our home page was in the #2 spot (line just appears out of nowhere) and it is now in the #1 spot.
I also see the same pages appearing for some keywords ranked in multiple positions then plummeting and one coming back up. I'm having a hard time understanding how the Keyword tool in Moz is reporting exactly. Thanks!
To add to this: From Oct 8th to the 15th we jumped up from #60 to #16 for one keyword and then by Oct. 22nd are back down to #60. I have a huge spike on the 15th. Wondering if that had anything to do with any algorithm updates?
-
SearchMetrics would be a good place to start - you won't get individual keyword historic performance but it will show your website's overall SEO visibility over time. Particularly useful for tying in with Google algorithmic updates.
George
-
Thanks everyone. I have to report on keyword progress and just noticed those things and wanted to be sure it was ok. I'm having a hard time reporting on the progress of keywords as I can only go back to August in Moz. If anyone has any other suggestions for a way to see historical progress I'm all ears. Thanks!
-
Hi Sika,
What you're seeing isn't anything to be concerned about, and Moosa has already answered the cannibalisation part. I'd advise against tracking positions for individual keywords using a single tool from one week to the next. If you imagine there's a natural fluctuation of rankings and Moz is taking individual snapshots that might be up one day and down the next so they're only really meaningful when tracked over a longer period of time. You're also not taking into account the long tail - bunches of keywords that are similar which may not be fluctuating nearly as much as the one you're tracking.
The real indicator of where you rank should be the organic traffic to the page. I doubt that traffic will be fluctuating even nearly as much as the positions for the few keywords you are looking at.
As for algorithmic negative impact - you would probably see significant drops across multiple tracked keywords if this was the case - and those drops would be sustained until you diagnosed and fixed the problem.
Regards,
George
-
The situation you have mentioned didn’t really sound much terrifying and I think two pages if naturally targeting the same keyword should not be a problem. By definition this is exactly for Keyword Cannibalization is!
Keyword cannibalization (no matter how awfully terrifying it may sound) is a widely-spread website internal information structure problem that occurs when multiple subpages are (heavily) targeting one and the same key term.
Hope this helps!
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 inside keyword
Hi, I'm a newb and I'm trying to wrap my head around how this keyword thing works. Let's say I find these KWs as part of my research: Acupuncture Acupuncture Clinics Acupuncture Clinics in Gainesville Acupuncture Clinics in Gainesville Florida Does optimizing for Acupuncture Clinics in Gainesville Florida optimize me for all the other terms as well? And furthermore, might I appear for searches like these too: Acupuncture Florida Acupuncture Gainesviile Acupuncture clinics Fl Thanks a bunch!
Keyword Research | | Graphbyte0 -
How to identify negative keywords in a campaign?
Which keywords are negative and harmful for a website, how to identify? And how to remove those type of keywords from campaign? If you have any type of tool for identify to negative keywords, then please suggest me?
Keyword Research | | surabhi60 -
Long tail keyword research
Is there any way for me to figure out long tail key words related to keyword such as "IT solutions"? This is a competitive term. How do I figure out related keywords with high search volume and less competition?
Keyword Research | | zsyed0 -
Error Being Displayed While analyzing keyword Rankings
While searching for Rankings for a couple of NEW keywords I got this message : (Whoa! We're dusting off the cobwebs from your keyword history. Don't worry, your data is fine. Check back soon to see your updates.). I don't know what this means, can somebody please provide some info on this error message as to what it means
Keyword Research | | Arfath0 -
Google keyword tool
Hey anyone noticed Google's keyword tool seems to be returning weird data for search volume compared to just a few days ago? "iron fist clothing" exact match was returning around 1,000 local monthly searches and a monthly trend of approximately the same over the past year. As of yesterday it has zero searches for exact match and even the monthly trends have all been set to zero for every month going back a year Now I suppose this could happen in theory but the fact that the trend is showing up as zero for each month over the last year makes me think this could be a bug. I've also noticed this for one of my keywords on my SEO site, again suddenly gone to zero searches and monthly trends going back a year. However a quick check on webmaster tools shows the impressions going back a few months at the average of 1,300 that the old trend suggested it should be. Anyone else noticed this?
Keyword Research | | barabis770 -
Stop List and Keywords
I've came across a suggested list of words that google will ignore in your content, if this is correct and one of our main keywords is one of those words, will it lose effectiveness? We are trying to get #1 SERP for "Self Tan" and it seems "Self" is one of the words ignored - so should we just be focusing on Tan? Any tips / advice would be great!
Keyword Research | | ChrisMciIlroy0 -
The importance of meta keywords
Hello, I am looking into Meta keywords in the attempt to understand their importance. I have been reading about this in several blogs and get the feeling that the general view is that they are no longer very valuable. Some say it is because Google and Bing no longer use them, that in terms of SEO they carry little importance and that they are a great indicator to your competitors about which keywords you believe are important... My question is this: Without Meta keywords, how do you deal with misspelt search keywords on your website? For example, if you were looking for a product called 'El Mundo en Espa_ñ_ol' but spelt it using the normal 'n' instead of the Spanish 'ñ', and the keyword 'Espanol' was not included in the Meta keywords, would you still find the product? English speaking people commonly search without the ñ because this is more convenient to them. So how can I make sure that the page is optimised for these type of common misspellings? Thanks!!!
Keyword Research | | languedoc0