What is Keyword Cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization is an issue that can really undermine a website’s search engine optimization. Knowing the best keyword practices to employ for your website can help ensure that it does not suffer when getting ranked by search engines for targeted search terms. Hiring a digital marketing team that employs experienced writers to handle your website’s content is one of the best ways to make your content work for you and keep it up to modern standards, and the writers here at FirstPage Marketing are always ready to help!

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What is Keyword Cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization takes place when too many similar keywords are used throughout a website’s pages and content. When this occurs, a website’s pages will begin to compete with themselves, lowering the website’s overall ranking signals. Search engine algorithms are set up to crawl a website and look for priority within the content in order to determine what to show and when all the content on all the pages looks the same, the algorithms can’t figure out what has meaning and what is just keyword stuffing.

Ideally, a search engine will be able to look at a website, see that the homepage is the top priority, and then organize subpages beneath that in order of relevant priority. Keyword cannibalization removes this capability.

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What’s the Difference Between Keyword Cannibalization and Keyword Stuffing?

While keyword stuffing and keyword cannibalization often overlap and occur at the same time, they are not the same thing. Keyword cannibalization occurs when different pages or sections of content are vying for the same search term attention, while keyword stuffing takes place when the same words are used repeatedly throughout a page.

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Search engines used to be much simpler in how they assigned rank for different search terms. The more that a keyword was used on a website, the higher it ranked on search engines, so it was useful to include top keywords as many times as possible throughout content. Search engine algorithms are now much more advanced, and keyword stuffing can completely destroy a website’s credibility and search rankings.

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How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization

The best way to avoid keyword cannibalization is to map out content for a website. Ensure that each page within a website has one main keyword that it is targeting, and that all of the content is written in support of that keyword. If the main keywords and supporting content on any two pages are too similar, one of the pages’ content should be rewritten or the pages should be merged.

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If you need help with your website’s content in order to get your business to rank better on search engines, the team at FirstPage Marketing is always ready to get started. Our experienced SEO experts and content writers can ensure that your content meets modern-day standards to improve overall website rankings.

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