Ok, so we’re going to get a bit techy here (but not tooooo techy, don’t worry), and talk about an issue I often see my clients battling with – keyword cannibalisation. It’s one of those millions of things that can cause significant drops in your site’s traffic or mean you never get the traffic your site deserves in the first place. When it happens, it requires a strong page-level strategy to get your content out of the deep, dark depths of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and into the limelight on page one.
Of course, there’s a lot more to getting to page one than just solving your cannibalisation issues – but cannibalisation, and the potential for it when you’re mapping out your content strategy, is an important consideration all good SEOs will raise.
TL;DR
Keyword cannibalisation is an SEO content issue.
It occurs when multiple pages on a website target the same or similar keywords, causing them to compete in search engine results.
It’s only a problem if it’s diluting visibility and traffic.
You’ll find cannibalisation issues with a thorough SEO audit.
You can fix cannibalisation with a page-level content strategy.
It’s difficult to avoid cannibalisation entirely as your site grows, but a clear SEO content strategy will help.
So, what is keyword cannibalisation, really?
Keyword cannibalisation (or content cannibalisation) can happen when more than one page of your website ranks for the same keyword. It’s an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issue that most businesses need to look in to at one stage or another (or sometimes, continuously).
Cannibalisation isn’t always an issue, but it can be if search engines (like Google & Bing) can’t identify which page is most relevant to searchers. If they’re not sure, they’re not going to rank the pages well, no matter how fancily you’ve crafted your message. Some of your most amazing content that really should be coming up on page one of the SERP ends up relegated to page 4 (or worse), never to be found by your target audience.
That means significantly reduced visibility and traffic. And less traffic = smaller audience = fewer conversions or purchases.
What's it's impact?
Good content naturally ranks for multiple keywords so automatically jumping in to “solve” cannibalisation can actually be the thing that causes issues for you. If your pages are performing well and seeing reasonable volumes of the right traffic visiting your site, leave it alone!
The problem is when you start to see the negative impacts in your site’s organic performance. When you have pages competing against each other, you’re likely to see:
- Poor ranking performance. If neither page is well optimised or both pages are optimised for the same keyword, their ranking ability (or “rankability” – which is not a word but should be) will be diluted and they’re both likely to rank lower in search. When it comes to optimising multiple pages for the same keyword, it’s a case of “if everything’s important, nothing’s important”. And that leads to…
- Reduced organic traffic. Only the incredibly dedicated and determined few get past the first page of the SERP, so you’re likely to see a big decline in the number of visitors to your site. Fewer visitors means fewer potential leads and sales.
You're also likely to see:
- Higher bounce rates
- Lower conversion rates
- Backlinks (links from other sites) pointing to multiple pages rather than delivering all their SEO goodness to one
- Reduced page authority
- And a convoluted or confusing user experience (which exacerbates points 1 & 2 above)
Keyword cannibalisation isn't always an issue, though
Multiple pages ranking for one term is not always a problem. If multiple pages of your site rank when someone searches for your brand name, for example, that’s not keyword cannibalisation, it’s just common sense. And the same applies to many of your services and products too.
It’s also not a problem if your primary target page is ranking well – ideally within the top 10 results. If it’s on page 2 of the SERPs, or if the wrong page is ranking well, there might be some things you can do to fix that.
What causes cannibalisation?
Two or more pages of your website targeting the same keyword and search intent is the biggest cause of keyword cannibalisation, but it’s not the only one.
Similar topics
Your website exists as a marketing channel for the products or services you sell, so it’s only natural that you talk about them a lot. Let’s take an example…
Say you sell customer service software that handles customers’ email enquiries, logs calls, publishes FAQs and controls webchat. You likely have many pages on your site talking about things like:
- What makes great customer service
- How to improve your customer service
- Key skills your customer service team need
- What customers expect from your customer service
While search engines have the smarts to identify that these topics shouldn’t all rank for a generic “customer service” search, they may struggle a bit more when responding to a search about how to improve customer service. To you, it’s obvious that the topic “How to improve your customer service” should rank, but to a search engine, definitions of great customer service, customer expectations and team member skills are all part of the equation.
Even if you’ve optimised each page for individual keywords, the overarching topic and themes come into play.
Ecommerce sites that sell many similar products are at particular risk of keyword cannibalisation for this exact reason.
Poor internal linking
Internal links are vital to the customer journey and content marketing funnel, but cross-linking your pages is just one part. Your anchor text (or hyperlinked text or the words people click on) should be the target keyword of the page you’re linking to wherever possible. This gives search engines a clear sign that the target page is what you want to be ranking for that specific keyword.
Using similar words or, worse, “click here” or “read more”, to link to multiple pages does nothing to help search engines out. With the example above, you wouldn’t want to link the words “customer service”. Instead, you want to be clear and link words like “customer service skills” or “customer expectations” be clearer on what the reader (and search engines) will find at the destination.
Poor site structure
Similar to poor internal linking practices, if your navigation and site structure (and therefore your sitemap) don’t show clear hierarchy of content, you’re relying on search engines (and visitors) to work it out themselves. That’s rarely a good thing.
If people have to think to find what they’re looking for on your site, they’re going to think about where else they might get the answer instead. (Hint: Your competitors.)
Outdated content
As your business grows and evolves, so does your website. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly easy for pages to fall through the cracks and be left live long after they should have been taken down. This often leaves you with duplicated content and unclear page and message priority.
Cannibalisation myths you need to forget
Say something often enough and people start to believe it. Here’s what some SEOs say about cannibalisation that’s just not true.
301 redirecting is the only cure for keyword cannibalisation: Not true, and not a viable solution for most businesses.
You shouldn’t mention a target keyword of one page on another page: I suspect this one loved their thesaurus.
A page can’t cannibalise another if it doesn’t include the term in the copy: Similar theory to above. But it’s 2026 and search engines are smarter than this.
Keyword stuffing will tell search engines what the page is really about: No. Just no.
You need to cater to all search intents on one page: Mixed search intent on the keyword? Obviously, a need for mixed intent on the page, right? Wrong.
How to find your content cannibals
A good site and content audit should identify your cannibals. If you don’t need a full site audit, though, here are some other ways to find them.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the free way to identify cannibalisation but, like pretty much everything free, there’s a huge trade off – time. I’d only recommend using this if you’re only interested in one or two specific keywords and not looking for all cannibals across your whole site.
To find cannibalised keywords in Google Search Console:
- Go to “Search results” under Performance and scroll down to the table below the graph.
- Under “Queries”, click the keyword you’re interested in.
This will open the “Pages” tab and show all the pages ranking for that keyword. You won’t see rank positions, but you will see clicks and impressions. If you know the average monthly search volume for the keyword, you can make an educated guess about how well the page is performing for the term.
Remove the query filter at the top of the screen, go back to the “Queries” tab, and select the next keyword.
Semrush
There are two ways to use Semrush to identify pages ranking for the same keywords: their in-built tool (limited) or through exports and spreadsheets.
Semrush's built-in cannibalisation tool
The cannibalisation tool in Semrush is limited to the keywords you’re tracking rankings for. The number of keywords you can track is limited by your plan, so if you’ve got a large to enterprise-sized site you might need to keep a couple of keyword lists in spreadsheets and replace them in the tool to locate all the cannibals.
When you’re in Semrush:
- Go to Position Tracking.
- Select the project (or add a new one).
- Click “Cannibalization”.
- Scroll down to the table to review by page or keyword.
While this is not an exportable report, it does tell you how many pages and keywords are impacted. It also includes changes to position in SERPs to help you identify if there’s an issue.
Manually using Semrush
The other way to use Semrush to identify cannibalisation is through Domain Overview. On the Domain Overview page:
- Enter the site URL and select the country you’re looking at
- Scroll down to “Top Organic Keywords” and click to see all the details
- Select a time period or month to look at
- Export the table (below the graph) to CSV or Excel
- Open the file and convert it into a table in Excel, Google Sheets, your spreadsheet tool of choice.
- Sort A-Z on the “Keyword” column and look for duplicates
The good thing about this report is it tells you the page (URL), the rank, and any rank changes over your selected time period. It also tells you the estimated search volume for the keyword which can help you define priority of fix.
The bad thing about this report is that its results don’t always align with what you see in Google Search Console or even in Semrush’s own cannibalisation tool.
Ahrefs
My favourite for finding cannibalisation is Ahrefs. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to Site Explorer and enter the URL.
- Click “Opportunities”.
- Choose “Potential cannibalization”.
In the URL column, you’ll see the best ranking URL for the keyword and the number of other URLs also ranking. That’s useful if you’re only trying to get a quick look but, as with most SEO data, I do suggest exporting the data to a spreadsheet before you dig in.
What I love about this report is its flexibility. You can run it by subfolder or subdomain – super helpful if you’re only interested in looking at one part of a site, like the blog. You can set a time period for checking out rank changes or not – it’s not a forced inclusion. And the filters you can apply are fully customisable. Love!
Resolving content cannibalisation
Ok, so you’ve found your cannibals, what’s next?
If the pages all serve the same purpose, a simple merging of the content into one page and implementing a 301 redirect will do the trick. However, I’m guessing you’ve got multiple pages for a reason so that’s a subpar answer. Here’s what I recommend instead.
1. Identify your primary page for the keyword you’re looking at
Every page of your site should be targeting a unique keyword and search intent. Decide which page best suits the keyword and intent in question. Once you’ve done that, define the primary keywords and search intents for the other pages too.
2. Review what’s competing on the keyword in the SERPs
Reviewing the top 10 ranking pages for the keyword in your target locale will give you good insight into what Google believes people are looking for when they search that term. And with the vast amounts of data they have, they’re usually right.
Keep an eye out on the terminology that’s being used, the topics touched on and how deeply they’re covered, the links and calls to action, and any other helpful info and tools on the pages. As a general rule, you need to cover the topics just as well – if not better – to even start to compete.
3. Check the URL
While Google has told us not to bother updating URLs for SEO sake, it’s still best practice to include the primary keyword in the URL slug.
What’s a URL slug? It’s the bit on the end of the domain that indicates the page you’re looking at.
e.g. yourcompany.com/primary-keyword
If you can update it, do, and then 301 redirect the existing page to the new URL.
4. Review the title tag and meta description
Make sure your title tag and meta description include the primary keyword as naturally as possible. Google and Bing don’t tend to use meta descriptions for ranking purposes – they’re just good for attracting clicks – but LLMs like ChatGPT do rely heavily on them for now.
At the same time, make sure your primary keyword for this page is NOT included in the title tag and meta descriptions of other pages.
5. Update your headings
Your primary keyword should be naturally included in the H1 and at least one of the H2 headings. If it’s not, play around with it until you can find a way to make it fit. Emphasis on naturally here – don’t just throw it in if it doesn’t work (but if it doesn’t work, are you targeting the right keyword?).
6. Revise your copy
Is it covering the topics the ranking pages are talking about? Is there more that needs to be said? Does the structure make sense?
And, most importantly, is it aligned with the searcher intent? Generally:
- Informational intent: Feel free to be verbose and share your knowledge freely.
- Commercial intent: Make sure you’re highlighting the benefits of your products, solutions or services.
- Transactional intent: Don’t forget that prominent “Buy Now” button.
7. Delete any overlapping content
Your page content should be as unique as possible and specific to the topic. There’s often an overlap of topic between pages but instead of repeating information, link to it.
8. Consider adding FAQs
If they already exist, maybe add more. FAQs are a great way to add relevant (but not vital) content. You can use them to better differentiate your products or services, or add in that helpful content that people often also ask about when they’re exploring your topic. (Think about those “People Also Ask” results you see on the SERP for ideas.)
9. Add links to the cannibalising pages
Does this seem contrary? It’s not. It’s the best way to say “this is also relevant, but it’s not what we’re talking about here”. Make sure you include the destination page’s primary keyword in the anchor (or linked) text. Whatever you do, do not use the keyword for the page you’re writing in that link.
10. Update the other pages
Use this opportunity to clearly differentiate the content and better align it with its goal. Also add links back to the page you’ve just updated wherever relevant (including that keyword in the anchor text, of course).
11. Publish and re-index the page
Once you’ve made your changes and had it all signed off, don’t forget to publish the updates and submit the page for re-indexing through Index Now or Google Search Console.
And of course, keep an eye on things over the next few weeks to monitor updates and changes.
Tips for avoiding cannibalisation in the first place
As your content efforts scale and your site grows, it’s near impossible to completely avoid cannibalisation. However, you can ensure you don’t do it intentionally.
I find the easiest way is with a boring old spreadsheet. Keep track of every page you publish, along with its target keyword, search intent and content objective. Before you write anything new, check the spreadsheet to ensure you’re not targeting a keyword you’ve already optimised content for.