Keyword Cannibalization Definition

 

Keyword cannibalization refers to the targeting of the same keyword, term or phrase on multiple pages of your website.  Each page of your website should be focused on a primary term so that that page can be clearly defined by the Search Engines as being relevant to that term and so that Search Engines don’t need to choose between like content pages. 

Also it is beneficial to not cannibalize keywords across your pages as other websites that want to link to your content may link to different pages thus diluting the benefits of the backlinks. 

Keyword cannibalization does not refer to using variations of keywords or terms on different pages as long as they are not too substantially similar.  For example; if you’re optimizing a page for “dog walking rates” it is well known, even by the Search Engines, that the terms “rates” and “costs” can be synonymous and interchangeable.  Therefore if you’re going to optimize one page for “dog walking rates” and another for “dog walking costs” it will be good to differentiate the content substantially so that they are sufficiently different from each other.  This can be done by performing keyword research on the terms and using such terms that are relevant to each within the content.

Your “dog walking rates” page can speak about the rates you charge for dog walking while the “dog walking costs” page can speak about costs incurred in dog walking that are accounted for in the rates charged, such as gasoline, dog cookies, etc.