Potential keyword cannibalization?
-
Hi, I'm doing an audit of a site for a very competitive term (project management software).
The site ranks for its root domain on the second page. They have a lot of other non-blog pages that are geared towards longer tail versions that include that term (project management software pricing, project management tool comparison, etc).
My question is: are those pages cannibalizing potential search traffic? Should they just stick to the one page (root domain) and include those longtail keywords on the page instead of creating various pages that seem to possibly be cannibalizing traffic? Is this a fair conclusion that these other pages is causing them to rank lower for the main head term?
-
"Canibalization is when the same page, competes for several keywords." This statement is incorrect.
One of the many articles that you can check about it:
https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-keep-keyword-cannibalism-from-robbing-your-sites-performance
-
Hi James,
By having several pages that target similar yet distinct keywords, the site is maximizing its web real estate and not harming its root domain's rankings. It is possible that both the root domain and a more narrowly targeted page can both rank for the same keyword; however, if you don't mind which one shows up above the other because they both take you to the same site, you don't risk hurting the results of either page.
Long story short: the pages targeting longer-tailed, more specific keywords should help capture additional traffic that a more general page (like your root domain) would not.
Hope that helps!
-
Hi James,
I have good experience with BIG pages. This means 1500+ words and infographics, pics and video all on the one page. The most important longtail keywords you can make paragraphs for with H3 headers. On this page you only put 2-3 internal links and 1 outbound to a Wikipedia or other source you gather information from. These pages get high "time-on-page" scores and you will notice the improvement in rankings rapidly (2-3 weeks).
Good luck!
Tymen
-
Hi James,
Lets get something clear: Canibalization is when the same page, competes for several keywords.
As you shared, there are many pages, each of them ranking on single or few SERPs. Keep it that way, make sure that optimization on those pages are correct and well targeted for the long tail.
The thing is: Work every page to get it ranked in just few keywords, included the root domain (that is also a page).As the root domain and the correlation with long tails SERPs: No, it doesnt harm its ranking.
Hope it helps.
GR.
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
-
How to rank same page for multiple related keywords
We need some of our pages to rank for multiple related keywords. But we cannot optimise one page for multiple keywords which might end up ranking for none of them; at the same time we cannot optimise it for one keyword as we ignore other keywords. I think creating multiple landing pages for very related keywords will confuse users and search engines as well. How to handle this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Cannot Increase Ranking For a Keyword Phrase
I've been working on the keyword phrase, "Niceville Assisted Living" for the website: http://nicevilleassistedliving.com and my increase in rankings has pretty much stalled. When I first started working on this website, a lot of the content was duplicated (which we took care of by plugging in unique content), there were locations listed on the homepage that were throwing my rankings off, I've created blog posts each week (we've even tried posting one post every day for a week), added the Facebook feed to the homepage, corrected errors in the theme, and I'm trying to get a resources page built. I know content is a very, very large part of SEO.. but it seems like the content I am plugging in isn't helping. There aren't any errors in Webmaster Tools and my keyword density is fairly close to the website ranking #1. I think my biggest problem is backlinks. Other websites have quite a few whereas the website I'm working on doesn't have any (I'm working on that, but the number I have doesn't compare to the websites ranking in the top three). I'm stumped as to what to do next. Does anyone have suggestions to improve the ranking for this keyword phrase?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ReviveMedia0 -
Are these URLs too Keyword-packed?
Hi guys, Here is the URL: http://www.consumerbase.com/mailing-lists/dog-stores-mailing-list.html The target keywords are "Dog stores mailing list" and "Dog stores mailing lists" Does having "mailing-list" and "mailing-lists" in my URL hurt me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Question about putting high traffic keywords in my Primary navigation menu.
Hello, I seem to be having a bit of a dilemma with making a crucial site architecture decision about which high traffic keyword I should put in my primary navigation menu. I am the owner of a computer repair business that I am currently re branding out of necessity for a few reasons. My existing business website has been established for the past 5 years now and I do all of the SEO and have been on the 1st Page of GOOGLE for anything computer repair related since day 1 however, like I said am re branding my company and migrating from Joomla to WordPress so it is a great time to make some positive and effective changes to my site architecture. I am going to be using the Silo Site Architecture on the new Site and I have a very firm working knowledge on the process but I seem to have hit a snag or dilemma with one of my Primary Navigation Categories for the Silo Theme. My specif question is this please.. Doing keyword research the Keyword Phrase "Computer Repair" is the most highly searched for keyword phrase for people that have computer related problems (naturally) and Ideally "Computer Repair" should be one of my Main Menu Navigation Silo Category Themes. But... here lies the problem.... If I go with "Computer Repair" in the (Main Nav Menu) then although it gets - 823,000 Local Monthly Searches I would be opening myself up to a potential problem because normally, most people associate the Phrase Computer Repair with Desktop Computer Repair. So in essence I would be forced to use an alternate other than "Computer Repair" for the Desktop Computer Repair structure in the Silo Theme (Sidebar Nav Menu). The Keyword Phrase "Desktop Repair" gets only - 12,100 Local Monthly Searches so basically no one uses the Search Phrase "Desktop Repair. when they are looking to get their computer repaired. I hope that I did not just confuse you? Still confused? Continue reading and I will dissect my psycho babble for you..... "The Semantic Historical Logic" Historically, a Desktop has always been referred to as a computer. Hence the reason why even still today, when our "Desktop" has problems and we need to get it fixed, we Search for "Computer Repair". Why is that? That's a very good question and here is "exactly" why. Long before we had Laptops, Netbooks, Tablets and Smart Phones we had the all encompassing and mighty "Computer" that allowed us to connect to the rest of the world. It was not until Laptops actually came about where there was a need to assign an actual _"Classification System"_and all mighty and powerful "Computer" became a "Desktop Computer**"!!! ** So, there you have it. This is the reason why "Computer Repair" is synonymous with "Desktop Repair" and why "NO ONE" searches for desktop repair when their Desktop Computer is broken! ============================================================= ACTUAL EXAMPLES WITH SCREEN SHOTS BELOW! If I go with Example A: I have the the Highest Traffic Keyword Phrase in my Mast Head (Main Nav Menu) but would be forced to use Desktop Repair to classify (Desktop Repair) in (Sidebar Nav Menu) instead using the keyword phrase "Computer Repair" to classify Desktop Repair. Example A: Main Nav Theme Category = "Computer Repair" = 823,000 Monthly Loc Child Pages/ Categories = -Desktop Repair = **12,100 ** Monthly Loc -Laptop Repair = 165,000 Monthly Loc -Tablet Repair = 165,000 Monthly Loc -Remote Desktop = 1,000,000 Monthly Loc I am using WordPress - (Pages / Child Pages) not Categories & Posts! So, as you can see from (Example A:) above, not being able to use the keyword phrase "Computer Repair" to classify the "Desktop Repair" section kind of opens me up for failure to a good extent as most of my business is done on regular desktop computers which people generally think "Computer Repair" when they are searching to have their Desktop Repaired. ============================================================= Example B: Main Nav Theme Category = **"Computer Service" = **246,000 Monthly Loc Child Pages/ Categories = -Computer Repair = 823,000 Monthly Loc -Laptop Repair = 165,000 Monthly Loc -Tablet Repair = 165,000 Monthly Loc -Remote Desktop = 1,000,000 Monthly Loc I am using WordPress - (Pages / Child Pages) not Categories & Posts! Now, with (Example B:) even though the keyword Phrase "Computer Service" is not the more favorable item to have as the Silo Theme Category in the Main Navigation Menu, we can see that it is much more favorable in terms of Local Monthly Searches over the just about non searched for phrase "Desktop Repair" So as you see, I have a bit of a dilemma that a more experienced SEO could counsel me on. The question is, through your experience, which scenario would you see as more favorable for the site Architecture example A: or example B: This brings me to my next question that also creates some confusion for me. If you say I think (Example B:) would be my better bet what would you recommend that I do with the URL Structure if "Computer Service" is the Parent Page for the Silo Theme? Example: I am using the /%category%/%postname%/ permalink structure for the Silo Site Architecture for the (Blog Section) only - and am using WP Pages and Child Pages for my Silo Content for my Services (Not Posts). Would this URL be a problem in Googles eyes or a customers eyes and be perceived as SPAMMY ... http://www.pcmedicsoncall.com/computer-services/computer-repair/ More than likely, I would say yes because it looks that way to me! My question to you in regards to the link structure above is, If I take the "Computer Service" page and change the "SLUG" to (services) yes it will look better but... will that effectively work against me??? EDIT: ^^ Answered my own question on the Services deal directly above. ^^ Thank you for reading my very long winded questions but I am pretty detailed and I think that the better that I explained it the less writing and guessing what I meant would be better for all concerned (typing wise) Thank you very much and I look forward to your insightful expertise and wisdom. Marshall COMPUTER-SERVICE-MAST-HEAD.png COMPUTER-SERVICE-MAST-HEAD.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarshallThompson310 -
Google places keyword variations
Hi all, I have a site that is ranking #1 in Google Places for its main <city><keyword>search... but it does not rank for any of its basic keyword variations, which I find very confusing.</keyword></city> ie (just an example) Chicago Caterer (ranked #1 in google places)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | x2264983x
Chicago Caterers (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Company (not ranked in google places)
Chicago Catering Companies (etc..) How can I secure a google places ranking for these simple keyword variations? Do I build links to the google plus page using that anchor text? Do I get citations that contain that keyword somewhere on the page? Do I optimize for these keyword variations on the actual website itself? (not the places listing). Obviously I don't stuff these keywords into the google places listing. Any help would be much appreciated!0 -
Ranking drop for a particular page on a particular keyword
Take a look at centerforhealthysex.com/sex-addiction. For months we were ranking in the top 3 spots with this URL for "sex addiction los angeles", even reaching #1 for a while. Late last year we redesigned and developed the site to clean up the code and redirects. We also cleaned up the internal linking structure. For years we had been ranking on "sex addiction los angeles" for the home page ... bumping around the top 5 spots, but we wanted organic traffic to go to /sex-addiction. In the Fall, we saw overall site traffic rise steadily. We made few changes to the site and none to this page or links flowing back to the page once we had achieved strong ranking -- we didn't want to mess with a good thing. Then November 27th we started losing ranking on this term and a couple others. The good news is that we gained ranking on some high volume traffic terms so overall organic traffic is reasonably strong, BUT we're not ranking on the terms where we want to rank. Centerforhealthysex.com/sex-addiction is now nowhere to be found on the target search term despite fairly strong page rank. I tried redoing and resubmitting the site map, cleaning out some potentially duplicative content but to no avail. I see no issues, errors or warnings in Webmaster Tools. We have a few medium priority fixer-uppers in SEO Moz, but we've taken care of the majority of the big stuff. What am I not seeing? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joshuakrafchin0 -
Keyword research - how to find additional competitors and links
Hello, We need 100 strong linking root domains to rank at all in our industry (probably more). But all our competitors are using internal pages. I only found one competitor that is using their home page, and I found 12 good backlink possibilities through it. How do I go about finding other competitors? I know this is a general question, but what strategies do you guys use, and could you give examples?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Multiple Keyword Research Questions, Help
Hello , I've been trying for several days to understand how keyword research works for a multi purpose website,I've read guides, articles even some chapters from the book" The Art of Seo" by O'Reilly and still no luck. It seems i can't wrap my head around keyword research,lets say I have a social gaming community website and I'm trying to rank it first on some low competition keywords + some long tail keywords.The website has functions like leaderboards, profiles,events, competitions,etc so it's not actually a news related website but it will have a blog. My website being on the games niche It would imply that I should target words that contain the word "Games" but this word generates millions of searches globally so ranking first its nearly impossible if the website is brand new. This made me pursue generic keywords formed with 2 / 3 words like fresh games, new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc which still generate lets say 30.000 searches globally each. Due to the different areas of the website like latest game events,latest games competitions,etc I'm confused If i should pursue website specific keywords like latest games events, fresh games events, latest games competitions, upcoming games competitions but these too generate 30.000 global searches each,so... 0.should i use generic keywords or keywords that include site features? So let's say I decide to pursue generic "games" keywords,due to a high competition based on the keyword I decide to go a layer deeper and for the keyword "fresh games" I obtain keywords like** "fresh games 2011,top fresh games 2011, upcoming fresh games** " and thus building a list of 30 keywords that contain " fresh games".If i do this for the rest of the keywords: ** new games, mmorpg games, fps games,etc** I end up with a list of 10.000 keywords or more since each keyword generates other keywords. Is this the correct approach ? since generating 10.000 keywords sounds a lot and I'm getting the feeling that It's not how it supposed to be done,like were would I insert 10.000 keywords? So how do I know which keywords to pick and aim in order to try to get no.1 ranking? and why those? How many keywords should I use? and where should i put them? since it's not a news website so writing a lot of articles isn't an option. Should I focus on 2 words keywords with around 10.000-30.000 seaches or 2 words keywords + long tail keywords with less traffic like 100 - 5000? Is there a guide for the Keyword Analysis Tool since if i enter "fresh new games" i get a 39% keyword difficulty,is that hard to rank? and I don't know what all those color mean since some of them have higher numbers then others that are found at the top and how can i get beat a website that has has rank 10. So hopefully with your help & by some miracle I will finally be able to build a keyword list. Thank you !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | arching0