Cannibalization’s Good Twin (search engine optimisation Examine)

Key phrase cannibalization is when a search engine consistently exchanges rating between a number of pages or when a number of pages rank concurrently for a similar key phrase however are related sufficient to be consolidated.

These circumstances want fixing as a result of Google will show just one web page at a time or you would get extra site visitors by rolling content material beneath one web page.

Instance: “search engine marketing case research” 

For the key phrases “search engine marketing case research” and “search engine marketing case examine”, we noticed a bunch of weblog posts consistently exchanging rankings within the SERPs.

Though every case examine had a unique URL, the phrase “case examine” in every title and URL could have triggered cannibalization.

This meant that each time we printed a brand new case examine, the previous one was dropped from the SERPs and substituted with the brand new one.

As a result of consolidating, we rank better with one page than we ever did with several. We almost instantly ranked in the top 10 and have remained in the top 3, most of the time giving way only to Google’s page on the same topic. Some of the case studies even ranked as site links to the pillar page.

Example: “broken link building” 

For this keyword, we used to have two guides. As you can see below, these rankings didn’t swap, they ranked simultaneously in the top 10 for a long time.

However, we managed to improve that result with a new guide that consolidated information from the old guides — this is the long pink line you can see in the chart below.

So, this was a case of cannibalization because these pages were close enough in terms of content. In such cases, consolidating content can bring better results.

Keyword diversification is when two or more pages rank for the same keyword simultaneously, and there is likely no benefit in consolidating.

There’s nothing to be fixed here. If Google ranked your site more than once, the system rewarded your content.

Example: “keyword rankings” 

For this keyword, we rank with:

• A glossary article ranking in the featured snippet.
• A landing page for a tool at #4 .

Do the pages swap rankings? No, they’ve been ranking simultaneously for over half a year.

Is there any benefit to consolidating? Unlikely. This way, we serve two kinds of intent: we cater to people who want to get a definition of the term as well as those who want to check their keyword rankings.

Example: “SEO audit” 

For this keyword, we rank with:

• A blog article at #4.
• A landing page for a tool at #7.

None of the pages swap rankings.

Consolidating them would make no sense because we would need to choose between catering to searchers who want a tool and those who want a guide.

Why rank as soon as when you may rank twice, proper?

Certain, when you rank two instances within the prime 10, you get site visitors from each positions (as proven in site visitors uplift within the desk beneath). This may occasionally appear to be an absolute achieve in site visitors, nevertheless it’s a bit tough. In observe, the brand new site visitors might not be value it, and also you’re additionally risking pushing down one other helpful web page.

Let me illustrate this. I took a bunch of key phrases the place we ranked with 2 URLs within the prime ten (in any other case, we’d hardly get any site visitors) and appeared on the click on distribution.

• Visitors uplift — the site visitors we gained by way of rating one other web page in prime 10 (site visitors to new web page/site visitors to previous web page).
• Visitors share of the previous web page — site visitors share of the web page that ranked first for the key phrase.
• Visitors share of the brand new web page — site visitors share of the web page that got here later, i.e., the web page that created diversification.

As you may see, pages that come later to the SERPs don’t all the time get an even bigger site visitors share. Simply by taking a look at this small pattern, we are able to see that there are no less than three doable eventualities:

• The brand new web page can outrank the previous web page, both by leaping into a better place than the unique web page or pushing the previous web page decrease. Extra site visitors will go to the brand new web page, and in some circumstances (as a result of that additionally is determined by the CTR), you’ll achieve considerably extra site visitors.
• The brand new web page will outrank the previous, however will get decrease CTR, and fewer site visitors. That is what occurred within the case of “key phrase rankings” — the featured snippet with a definition of a time period ranked increased than a touchdown web page with the free instrument however received fewer clicks.
• The brand new web page received’t outrank the previous web page or will rank in web site hyperlinks. Then your diversification efforts will add a number of p.c of latest site visitors at finest.

Bear in mind that:

• All newly added pages ranked for his or her distinctive set of key phrases, bringing in further site visitors not listed above.
• We’re solely speaking concerning the amount of site visitors right here. How certified that site visitors was is a unique story.

First off, it’s not one thing you may absolutely management. In our case, most of these cases have been accidents — Google’s hard-coded propensity to rank some websites a number of instances on the identical SERP.

However let’s say you see this nice alternative to rank twice within the prime 10. It’s undoubtedly doable, however once more, a bit tough. Primarily based on my observations:

This should give you a good idea of whether taking another position is worth the fight.

Going further, I checked if the metrics and characteristics below had any relation to keyword diversification.

No keyword is too popular for diversification

The median search volume for cannibalized keywords is virtually the same as for our single rankings (50 vs. 40), so we can infer that search volume doesn’t play a determining role.

Theoretically, you could rank multiple pages either by aligning with search intents already present on the SERPs or creating something unique but extremely valuable.

If I had to answer this question having only our data, I’d say “follow the crowd”. As you will see in a bit, multiple rankings can happen both with keywords with a single dominant search intent as well as those with a more mixed intent but none of our pages broke outside of already existing types and formats of content.

So when there are only article ranking, your best chances might be by diversifying with articles. And if you see different types of pages ranking, say an article and a landing page, there’s a chance of ranking by creating both these types.

Tip

If you’re an Ahrefs user, there’s a nifty AI feature in Keywords Explorer and Site Explorer that estimates the traffic share to each type of intent in the top 10. Check it out.

You don’t need less specific keywords to diversify

We’d expect long-tail keywords to have fewer multiple ranking instances (be it cannibalization or diversification) because the intent would be more defined from the query.

To measure this, I compared word count distribution in keywords with single rankings and multiple rankings using boxplots.

As you can see, the boxplots are almost identical, so no correlation could be at play here.

However, an interesting takeaway here is that if we look at a histogram of word count frequency in the multiple URL data set, we see that most keywords occupied the 3–4 word count range. That indicates ranking multiple times for quite specific search queries is definitely possible.

Again, I compared multiple rankings with single rankings.

Here, we can see a clear difference. The median of multiple rankings is way higher than single rankings (64 vs. 37).

One thing is for sure with such a result—you can rank multiple times, even for highly competitive keywords.

Let’s sum up.

Multiple rankings in Google create two effects: cannibalization and diversification.

This means that classic SEO theory is wrong—you don’t need to go and fix each keyword with multiple rankings.

This also means that you can potentially take advantage of Google’s propensity for multiple rankings and can get more traffic out of a keyword. That said, I’d consider it a pro move, which may have a high opportunity cost compared to targeting some other keyword with just one page. That’s because:

• The additional rankings may not last long.
• You may “outrank yourself”, and the page you outrank will get fewer clicks.
• You may need more expensive types of content than what you already have. For instance, a free tool that serves the intent better than an article that already ranks.