Keyword cannibalization is what happens when you have multiple pages on your website that are pointing to the same keyword.
When more than one page is designed to rank for a specific keyword, you end up competing with yourself. As a result, each page has lower authority, lower click-through rates, and even lower conversion rates than if you only had one landing page.
 
So, below we have discussed briefly keyword cannibalization facts why it is bad for SEO. 
 

1. Cannibalizing your content

Simply put, keyword cannibalization is the separation of click-through rate (CTR), links, and conversions between two pages, which must be merged or targeted at different keywords.
 
Example: If you have a website that sells hats and you have two pages targeting the keyword “baseball caps.” It can be two pages that discuss and offer the same information and content, in which case they should be merged into one page where all the information can be found in one place.
 

2. Keyword Cannibalization Impact on SEO

You’ve probably heard more than once that keyword cannibalization affects your rankings and your entire website. Many experts and Google representatives started warning us not to fall into this trap and start optimizing each page for a unique keyword by adding unique title tags and meta descriptions.
Keyword cannibalization is a term that emerged in the SEO world to explain some of the difficulties in helping and telling Google to rank the page they wanted when there was no local search and no contextual results.
 

3. Google’s Opinion on Keyword Cannibalization

We all know that keyword cannibalization was a bag ban. Back then, Google didn’t have the sophisticated algorithms it has today to select and rank a relevant page for a specific keyword.
Currently, Google crawls all web pages where you see many different pages with relevant content for the same keyword. After that, you have to choose between these pages and show only the accurate page.
 

Is Keyword Cannibalization an Issue?

If your pages are strong and have different values for the same keyword, then, in this case, you can consider keyword cannibalization as a great SEO opportunity because:
 
A.) This can increase your CTR: each position in the ranking takes up more space for the pages presented in the search results of the same domain.
B.) This will increase your search visibility – more keywords with a higher-ranking increase your site’s overall visibility in search.
More traffic through more results: each content is written for a specific type of audience, and if we start with this strategy, we can say that for two pages that rank for the same keyword, we could have the opportunity to double our traffic.
 

4. How to Identify and Remove Keyword Cannibalization

Implement an External Linking Campaign

It is possible to identify and exclude keyword cannibalization indirectly.
 
Example: The presence of external and internal links. Inbound links can take advantage of the SEO value of a single keyword-targeted page. Make sure all these pages have external links. In this way, you share the value of the inbound link between different pages, instead of focusing on one. A well-thought-out link structure will strengthen your site.
 
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