STOP  EATING  YOUR  WORDS  TO  AVOID  SEO  SITE  CANNIBALIZATION

IT’S  A  MYTH  -­DUPLICATE  CONTENT  PENALTY

-­ THERE’S  NO  SUCH  THING

EXACT  DUPLICATES  ARE  FILTERED  OUT  IN  THE  SEARCH  ENGINE  SYSTEM  TO  ARRIVE  AT  A  ‘SINGLE  URL  /  CONTENT  FINGERPRINT’

BUT…DUPLICATE  VERSIONS(HTTPS/HTTP/NONWWW/WWW)-­‐ IT’S  NOTALWAYS  THE  ONE  YOUWOULD  PREFER  THAT  GETS  CHOSEN  AS  ’THE  ONE’  AND  INDEXED

’AND…TOO  SIMILAR  CONTENT’  CAN  BE  A  ‘BALL  AND  CHAIN’  TO  YOUR  WEBSITE

BUT…WE  ARE  DROWNING  IN  A  SEA  OF  CONTENT…

WHAT’S  WORSE  THAN  DUPLICATE  CONTENT?

MAKING  GOOGLE  PLAY  SPOT  THE  DIFFERENCE

‘TOO  SIMILAR  CONTENT’  ISONE  OF  THE  CANNIBALS

WE  ARE  ALL PUBLISHERS

SOURCE:  http://wordpress/activity/posting

“Make  more  content”  can  have  a  down  side

A  LOT  OF  THE  CONTENT  IS  ‘KIND  OF  THE  SAME’

“There’s  a  needle  in  here  somewhere”

“It’s  an  important  needle  too”

GOOGLE  CAN  GET  CONFUSED  AS  TO  WHICH  PAGE  IT  SHOULD  RANK  FROM  YOUR  SITE  FOR  KEY  TERMS  FROM  TOO  SIMILARS

The  Four  Main  Types  Of  Cannibalisation –Slideshare @jonearnshawhttp://www.slideshare.net/jonathanearnshaw/seo-­‐46813620

AS  ONE  PAGE  GOES  UP…  OTHER  ’TOO  SIMILAR’  PAGES  GO  DOWN…  SOMETIMES  A  LOT

SOME  SYMPTOMS

• Different  pages  ranking  for  the  same  term

• Hanging  around  on  page  2

• Never  quite  achieving  those  top  spots

• Different  URLs  ranking  for  the  same  term  in  your  industry  seasonal  periods

• Not  getting  the  CTR  (click  through  rate)  despite  ranking  reasonably  well

• Shared  impressions  in  Google  Search  Console  for  different  pages  for  the  same  terms

IDENTIFY  THE  PROBLEM

SOME  SYMPTOMS

PRIMARY  TARGET  KEEPS  LEAPING  AROUND

CHECK  PAGE  SIMILARITY  %

http://www.webconfs.com/similar-­‐page-­‐checker.php

ARE  MANY  URLs  FIGHTING  WITH  EACH  OTHER  FOR  THE  SAME  QUERY?

CAVEAT:  CONTEXT  OF  QUERY  WILL  ALSO  COME  INTO  PLAY  BUT  GENERALLY  YOU  DON’T  WANT  SEVERAL  URLS  IN  THE  LIST

TOOLS

SITELINER  DUPLICATE  &  COMMON  CONTENT  CHECKER

SEMRUSH  DUPLICATE  CHECKER

DEEP  CRAWL  DUPLICATE  &  WRONG  VERSION  CHECKER

TOOLS

ON  PAGE  DUPLICATE

DO  A  SITE:YOURDOMAIN.COMSEARCH  IN  GOOGLE  SERPS

DO  A  SITE:  www.YOURDOMAIN.COMSEARCH  IN  GOOGLE  SERPSCHECK  THE  DIFFERENCEREPEAT  WITH  HTTPS

JUST  A  FEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  CANNIBALIZATION

• ‘Too  similar  or  wrong  version  content’

• Skewed  votes  of  ‘awesomeness’  from  within  your  own  site

• Anchor  text  inconsistency

• Lack  of  logic  within  site  structure

• Not  enough  ‘environmental  context’  surrounding  the  content

• Placement  in  site  structure

• Sharing  relevance  for  queries  with  other  pages  (even  those  which  are  not  that  similar)

• Optimising  several  pages  for  the  same  terms  (even  unwittingly)

• Incorrect  use  of  canonicalisation and  hreflang

SKEWED  ‘IMPORTANCE’  VIA  INTERNAL  LINKINGSTOP  VOTING  FOR  THE  WRONG  TARGETS  FROM  WITHIN  YOUR  OWN  SITE

THE  MOST  IMPORTANT  PAGES  SHOULD  BE  TOWARD  THE  TOP  OF  THE  LIST…

NOT  YOUR  BLOG  OR  BLOG  CATEGORIES  IDEALLY

BAD  VERY  SIMILAR  CONTENT  CAN  BE  GENERATED  VIA  ‘WRONG  PARAMETER’  PICKUP

SOMETIMES  GOOGLEBOT  PICKS  UP  ONTHE  WRONG  PARAMETER  FIELDFROM  DYNAMIC  URLS  AND  HEADS  OFFINTO  THE  MAZE.    

THE  IMPORTANT  URL  IS  LOST

CHECK  LOGS  FOR  STRANGE  URLS

THE  IMPORTANT  URL

LOSES  IMPORTANCE  WHEN  GOOGLEBOT  ENCOUNTERS  DYNAMICALLY  GENERATED  RANDOM  BUT  ‘LOGICAL’  CONTENT  FROM  PARAMETERS

INCONSISTENT  ANCHOR  TEXT  INTERNAL  LINKINGBE  CONSISTENT  IN  INTERNAL  ANCHOR  LINKS

BUT  DON’T  BE  SPAMMY  EITHER

MAKE  SURE  THAT  THE  CONTEXT  AND  LINK  IS  USEFUL  TO  THE  VISITOR  AND  ALSO  TO  THE  SEARCH  ENGINE

IF  YOUR  ’INTERNAL  ANCHOR  CLOUD’  SCREAMS  ‘SPAM  ON  MONEY  TERMS’…  NOOO

AVOID  BEING  ’FORMULAIC’

USE  BREADCRUMBS  TO  EMPHASISE  IMPORTANCE  &  RELEVANCE  IN  SITES

Image  credit:  https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/breadcrumbs-­‐in-­‐web-­‐design-­‐examples-­‐and-­‐best-­‐practices/

HOMESITE  

SECTIONCATEGORY

PRODUCT  /  ARTICLE

MOST

FEWER

FEWERSINGLE  TEXT  OUTPUT  ONLYBREADCRUMB

SOME  NOTES  ON  CANONICALIZATION1)  Duplicate  or  ‘very  near  duplicate’   content  should  be  canonicalized2)  You  can’t  no-­‐index  a  URL  and  then  canonicalize it  to  something   else3)  With  and  without  a  trailing  slash  is  different4)  Don’t   forget  to  switch  you  canonicals  when  moving   to  HTTPS5)  Self  referencing  canonicalization  can  help   if  your  content  gets  scraped6)  Avoid  canonicalizing URLs  to  another  if  it’s  too  different7)  Don’t   canonicalize paginated  URLs  to  the  first  page  of  the  set  – use  next/prev8)  Remember  that  Google   is  looking   for  a  single  version  of  a  URL  to  index  –canonicalization  is  key  to  this9)  Don’t   canonicalize just  for  rankings.  Canonicalize to  reduce  duplication10)  Consider  whether  a  301  redirect  would  be  the  best  fit11)  Review  ‘URL  parameters’  on  dynamic  sites  to  help  choose  canonicalsSOME  CANONICALS  MAY  BE  IGNORED  IF  GOOGLEBOT  /  THE  SEARCH  ENGINE  THINKS  YOU  MADE  A  MISTAKE  (e.g.  too  different  a  URL)

”PICK  YOUR  TARGETS”“Let  your  target  pages  be  a  clear  winner  always”

BUT…  DO  NOT  OVER  OPTIMISE  ANYTHING  EVER

YOU DON’T NEED TO OPIMISE EVERYTHING

MAKE  YOUR  TARGET  PAGE  ‘THE  MOST  RELEVANT’ON  A  TOPIC

MERGING  OF  ‘TOO  SIMILAR’  CONTENT  FOR  CONCENTRATION  (BULK  UP  (DON’T  STEAL)  THE  POWER)

1)  Variants2)  Stemming3)  Synonyms4)  Associated  keywords5)  Theme  level,  section  and  page  level6)  Silos

DO  A  CONTENT  AUDIT

Find  variants  for  a  keyword   in  Google  Search  Console   in  content  keywords

They’re  potentially  the  same  thing

You  need  to  merge  pages  if  they  can’t  stand  on  their  own  two  feet  alone

CONCENTRATE  RATHER  THAN  DILUTE

THEM  CRAZY  CRAZY  RANDOM  BLOG  SECTIONS

NO  ORDER  OR  LOGIC

ORGANISE  TO  SOME  ORDERED  LOGIC  TO  ADD  FURTHER  MEANING

‘MAKE  LIKE  A  LIBRARY’

A  BLOG  IS  NOT  A  LIBRARY  IT  IS  A  RANDOM  COLLECTION  OF  MANY  UNRELATED  THINGS

INTENT  TO  CONTENT  MAPPINGBOTH  HUMANS  AND  SEARCH  ENGINES  NEED  A  LOGICAL  STRUCTURE  AND  SIGNS  TO  UNDERSTAND  THE  CONTENT  WHICH  MATCHES  QUERY  INTENT.    THIS  CAN  HELP  TO  AVOID  CANNIBALISATION

THE  LOGIC  RELEVANCE  DIRECTOR  ‘THE  PERMANENT  TOPICAL  HUB  PAGE’

CATS

GALLERY

(Pictures  of  cats)

Queries:  cat  pictures

Cat  picture  categories

Kitten  pictures,  etc

FORUM

Chatting  cat  lovers

Long  tail  community  question  answering

Builds  the  buzz  around  the  rest  of  

the  site  too

BREEDERS

A  directory  of  breeders  

categorisedinternall by  cat  

type

Cat  breeders

PET  CARE

Lots  of  help  and  advice  on  the  care  of  cats

Queries:  My  cat  is  ill,  cat  care,  sick  cat

THE  CAT  PAGE  IS  MOST  POWERFUL– but  relevance  &  queries  are  clearly  matched  with  intent

‘Wall-­ties  of  semantically  ‘related’  relevance

INTENT  TO  CONTENT  FRAMEWORK

HUB  CONTENTHERO  CONTENT

THE  BRAND  FRONT  DOOR

HELP  CONTENTAn  environment  related  to  ‘support’,  ‘questions’,  ‘technical  q  and  a’s,  ‘opening   times’ANSWER  QUESTIONSOn  PRODUCTS  ETC,  ideas,  solutions,  styles

This  is  where  the  community,  blogs,   trends,  fashion,  opinions,  thoughts,   ramblings  and  content  less  focused  on  transaction  and  sales.  Don’t  compete  with  your  hero  pages  here.    Build  the  buzz  to  support   the  sales.    UGC  ideas  too

CAT CAT CAT

sc sc sc sc

e.g.  Query:  Shoes,  buy  shoes,   red  shoes,  etc

E.g.  US  shoe  sizes,  shoe  size  charts,  shoes  don’t   fit,  shoe  styles,  shoe  reviews

The  Shoe  Site

Strong  power  here

P P P P P

21  WAYS  TO  AVOID  SITE  CANNIBALISATION1)  Utilise Internal  linking  connecting   related  items  &  sections,  navigation,  breadcrumbs  and  some  contextual  (BUT  DO  NOT  BE  SPAMMY)  2)  Anchor  text  consistency  (BUT  DO  NOT  BE  SPAMMY)3)  Canonicalization  of  near  similar  content4)  Page  Title  Differentiation5)  H1,  H2,  H3   tag  differentiation6)  Intent  to  content  mapping  &  topical  permanent  hub  pages7)  If  you  can’t  improve  (for  now),  noindex (temporarily)  and  then   improve8)  Exclusion  of  near  duplicate  non-­‐preferred  version  from  XML  sitemap9)  Exclusion  of  301  redirects  from  XML  sitemap10)  Verify  all  possible  versions  of  your  site  in  Google  Search  Console   (http/https/www/non-­‐www)11)  Choose  1  version  of  your   site  (HTTPS/HTTP/WWW/NONWWW)  and  301  redirect  other  versions12)  Review  your  pages  for  duplicate  body  content13)  Check   for  multiple  similar  URLs  sharing  impressions  for  queries  in  GSC14)  Keep  boilerplate  areas  to  a  minimum15)  Avoid  ‘filler’  or  ’placeholder’  content  just  for  the  sake  of  having  content16)  Avoid  ‘spinning  content  around’   in  different  parts  of  your   site  without  having  decent  unique  content16)  Use  breadcrumbs  to  include  site  section  to  provide   further  context17)  Review  parameters  and  check   to  see  that  Googlebot is  not  crawling  the  wrong  ones18)  Fold  up  thin  content  and  merge  to  make  ‘great  content’  which  stands  out  on   its  own19)  Review  internal  links  and  chop  out  any  redirect  chains  to  end  target20)  Check  any  hreflang tags  to  make  sure  right  content  is  ranking  in  right  language  if  internationalised21)  Check  server  logs  on  larger  sites  to  check   for  abnormalities  &  googlebot visiting  strange  places

”EMPHASISE  IMPORTANCE”“Make  sure  you’re  giving  the  right  hints  on  URLs  to  Google  from  within  your  

own  website”

ALWAYS REMEMBER ‘NUANCES’ ARE KEY

BIG  TAKE  AWAY

TWITTER  -­‐ @dawnieandoGOOGLE+  -­‐ +DawnAnderson888LINKEDIN  – msdawnanderson

MOVE  IT  MARKETING  –www.move-­‐it-­‐marketing.co.uk

THANK  YOU