Effects of Keyword Cannibalisation
Meta Title: Effects of Keyword Cannibalisation – Vamossy Case Study
Meta Description: How much damage can cannibalisation do? How can it be avoided? In this case study you can learn how to recognize and fix cannibalisation.
Industry: E-commerce (Virtual gaming products and services)
Website: www.rpgstash.com
Domain Age: 22 Years
Domain DR: 43
Challenge: Improve search engine rankings and customer acquisition by repairing keyword cannibalisation
Project Execution
Once issues are identified, fixing cannibalisation is relatively easy, and can be done by using technical SEO solutions such as rel=canonical, noindexing, redirects, page optimisations, etc.
Identifying keyword cannibalisation took two steps. #1 was performing a site-wide keyword mapping (connecting each keyword to the page we want to rank with). When multiple, or unwanted pages ranked for a keyword, those were clear cases of cannibalisation.
The second way of identifying cannibalisation was indirect, we reviewed keywords to find ones that had unexplained, volatile performance. This could be major daily changes in rankings, in impressions, or in clicks inside Google Search Console. When we discovered such keywords, the reason for the weird behaviour was Google not being 100% certain which of our page to attribute to a keyword.
Results
Immediately after fixing cannibalisation issues, click counts for affected keywords and pages multiplied. You can see the changed result for a major page and keyword below.
Conclusion
Cannibalisation is a common issue on almost any website. It can be solved relatively easily, and only requires keyword mapping/thorough google search console keyword analysis to identify.
Our suggestion – Perform a keyword mapping for your entire website if you haven’t yet. Check in Google Search Console, and make sure one keyword only yields results on one page, and that each of your keywords perform steadily, excluding the possibility of Google misattributing the keyword.
Note – Make sure none of your primarily targeted keywords are being cannibalised. Check your top keywords, and check your top targeted keywords from time to time. Cannibalisation can occur once in a while as your website changes.