Keyword Diversification: Cannibalization’s Good Twin (SEO Study)

At Ahrefs.com we’ve got 9.7k cases of aggregate rankings. It’s erstwhile a tract ranks for a keyword with much than one page.

Now, classical SEO mentation says that if you fertile with much than 1 leafage for a keyword, it’s a cannibalization issue, and you should fix it.

But erstwhile I spent a time cautiously reviewing a illustration of 80 keywords with aggregate rankings, I recovered lone 1 lawsuit that needed action.

So if each different cases were not bad, possibly they were really good? Moreover, possibly you should target keywords with much than 1 leafage to compression retired much postulation from a keyword?

Keyword cannibalization: atrocious aggregate rankings

Keyword cannibalization is erstwhile a hunt motor perpetually exchanges ranking betwixt aggregate pages oregon erstwhile aggregate pages fertile simultaneously for the aforesaid keyword but are akin capable to beryllium consolidated.

These cases request fixing due to the fact that Google volition show lone 1 leafage astatine a clip oregon you could get much postulation by rolling contented nether one page.

Example: “seo lawsuit studies” 

For the keywords “seo lawsuit studies” and “seo lawsuit study”, we saw a radical of blog posts perpetually exchanging rankings successful the SERPs.

Although each lawsuit survey had a antithetic URL, the operation “case study” successful each rubric and URL whitethorn person triggered cannibalization.

This meant that whenever we published a caller lawsuit study, the aged 1 was dropped from the SERPs and substituted with the new one.

We fixed the contented by creating a bare-bones pillar page with interior links to each of our lawsuit studies. Google ranked the pillar leafage arsenic the main effect with a enactment of lawsuit studies arsenic site links.

As a effect of consolidating, we fertile amended with 1 leafage than we ever did with several. We astir instantly ranked successful the apical 10 and person remained successful the apical 3, astir of the clip giving mode lone to Google’s leafage connected the aforesaid topic. Some of the lawsuit studies adjacent ranked arsenic tract links to the pillar page.

Example: “broken nexus building” 

For this keyword, we utilized to person 2 guides. As you tin spot below, these rankings didn’t swap, they ranked simultaneously successful the apical 10 for a long time.

However, we managed to amended that effect with a caller usher that consolidated accusation from the aged guides — this is the agelong pinkish enactment you tin spot successful the chart below.

So, this was a lawsuit of cannibalization due to the fact that these pages were adjacent capable successful presumption of content. In specified cases, consolidating contented tin bring amended results.

Keyword diversification: bully aggregate rankings

Keyword diversification is erstwhile 2 oregon much pages fertile for the aforesaid keyword simultaneously, and determination is apt nary payment successful consolidating.

There’s thing to beryllium fixed here. If Google ranked your tract much than once, the strategy rewarded your content.

Example: “keyword rankings” 

For this keyword, we rank with:

• A glossary nonfiction ranking successful the featured snippet.
• A landing leafage for a instrumentality astatine #4 .

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

Is determination immoderate payment to consolidating? Unlikely. This way, we service 2 kinds of intent: we cater to radical who privation to get a explanation of the word arsenic good arsenic those who privation to cheque their keyword rankings.

Example: “SEO audit” 

For this keyword, we rank with:

• A blog nonfiction astatine #4.
• A landing leafage for a instrumentality astatine #7.

None of the pages swap rankings.

Consolidating them would marque nary consciousness due to the fact that we would request to take betwixt catering to searchers who privation a instrumentality and those who privation a guide.

Why fertile erstwhile once you tin fertile twice, right?

Sure, if you fertile 2 times successful the apical 10, you get postulation from some positions (as shown successful postulation uplift successful the array below). This whitethorn look similar an implicit summation successful traffic, but it’s a spot tricky. In practice, the caller postulation whitethorn not beryllium worthy it, and you’re besides risking pushing down different invaluable page.

Let maine exemplify this. I took a clump of keywords wherever we ranked with 2 URLs successful the apical 10 (otherwise, we’d hardly get immoderate traffic) and looked astatine the click distribution.

• Traffic uplift — the postulation we gained via ranking different leafage successful apical 10 (traffic to caller page/traffic to old page).
• Traffic stock of the aged page — postulation stock of the leafage that ranked archetypal for the keyword.
• Traffic stock of the caller page — postulation stock of the leafage that came later, i.e., the leafage that created diversification.

KeywordTraffic upliftTraffic stock of the aged pageTraffic stock of the new page

keyword search	1.94%	98.10%	1.90%
seo audit	37.74%	72.60%	27.40%
free seo tools	296.13%	25.24%	74.76%
affiliate selling for beginners	6.63%	93.78%	6.22%
free keyword probe tool	677.69%	12.86%	87.14%
keyword rankings	60.71%	62.22%	37.78%
how to go an affiliate marketer	2.39%	97.67%	2.33%
keyword difficulty	9233.33%	1.07%	98.93%

As you tin see, pages that travel aboriginal to the SERPs bash not ever get a bigger postulation share. Just by looking astatine this tiny sample, we tin spot that determination are astatine slightest 3 imaginable scenarios:

• The caller leafage tin outrank the aged page, either by jumping into a higher presumption than the archetypal leafage oregon pushing the aged leafage lower. More postulation volition spell to the caller page, and successful some cases (because that besides depends connected the CTR), you volition summation importantly much traffic.
• The caller leafage volition outrank the old, but volition get little CTR, and little traffic. This is what happened successful the lawsuit of “keyword rankings” — the featured snippet with a explanation of a word ranked higher than a landing leafage with the escaped instrumentality but got less clicks.
• The caller leafage won’t outrank the aged leafage oregon volition fertile successful tract links. Then your diversification efforts volition adhd a fewer percent of caller postulation at best.

Keep successful mind that:

• All recently added pages ranked for their unsocial acceptable of keywords, bringing successful further postulation not listed above.
• We’re lone talking astir the quantity of postulation here. How qualified that postulation was is simply a antithetic story.

First off, it’s not thing you tin afloat control. In our case, astir of those instances were accidents — Google’s hard-coded propensity to fertile immoderate sites aggregate times connected the same SERP.

But let’s accidental you spot this large accidental to fertile doubly successful the apical 10. It’s decidedly possible, but again, a spot tricky. Based connected my observations:

1. The disparity successful clicks betwixt 2 ranking pages tin beryllium significant. Oftentimes, introducing a 2nd leafage mightiness effect successful lone a marginal summation successful postulation portion perchance reducing clicks connected the primitively ranking page.
2. It’s much challenging than the bully ol’ one-keyword-one-page maneuver due to the fact that the likelihood are against you since the site diverseness update.
3. You whitethorn request much costly types of contented than what you already person ranking. For instance, a escaped instrumentality that serves the intent amended than an nonfiction that already ranks.
4. Maintaining apical integrated rankings for 2 pages is much hard than sustaining a azygous high-ranking spot. In the lawsuit of ahrefs.com, situations wherever a 2nd leafage maintains a agelong unchangeable presumption successful the apical 10 are uncommon (see image below).

Most looked similar this oregon worse — ranking and past dropping for months lone to reappear for immoderate reason.

Another happening you mightiness effort is to treble dip successful a keyword by ranking videos for keywords with video SERP features oregon make a hub of explanation pages (like our glossary) to fertile for featured snippets that necessitate a definition.

But there’s a hack for diversification, too: bargain oregon motorboat different website.

Google whitethorn assertion that they are precise cautious astir ranking the aforesaid site twice, but that does not look to use to the aforesaid business.

To illustrate, erstwhile our rival acquired a fashionable SEO blog, Google didn’t attraction astir the connection. It has been treating them arsenic 2 antithetic sites contempt being the aforesaid business. As a effect of diversification, that play allowed them to “double dip” connected 8700 keywords ranking successful the top 10.

Naturally, they’re not the lone example. Glen Allsopp does a fantastic occupation astatine pursuing the works of media giants who diversified truthful good that they virtually dominated the SERPs wrong their niches.

Obviously, much fashionable keywords volition person capable measurement to administer sizeable postulation crossed the apical 10. However, that postulation volition mostly beryllium connected the CTRs, and these are antithetic for each keyword.

If you’re utilizing Ahrefs, unfastened the Traffic stock by page study successful Keywords Explorer and you’ll get an estimation of however overmuch postulation you tin get from each presumption successful the SERPs.

This should springiness you a bully thought of whether taking different presumption is worthy the fight.

Going further, I checked if the metrics and characteristics beneath had immoderate narration to keyword diversification.

No keyword is excessively fashionable for diversification

The median hunt measurement for cannibalized keywords is virtually the aforesaid arsenic for our azygous rankings (50 vs. 40), truthful we tin infer that hunt measurement doesn’t play a determining role.

Diversify but marque definite to align with hunt intent

Theoretically, you could fertile aggregate pages either by aligning with hunt intents already contiguous connected the SERPs oregon creating thing unsocial but highly valuable.

If I had to reply this question having lone our data, I’d accidental “follow the crowd”. As you volition spot successful a bit, aggregate rankings tin hap some with keywords with a azygous ascendant hunt intent arsenic good arsenic those with a much mixed intent but nary of our pages broke extracurricular of already existing types and formats of content.

To exemplify my point, here’s a breakdown of the aforesaid apical 10 keywords you saw earlier, but this clip with a hunt intent investigation (using our 3C’s framework). In each cases, our ranking contented aligns with the existing contented types:

KeywordContent types successful apical 10Content format (if article) successful apical 10Our ranking contented (on Dec 5, 2023)

keyword search	Landing pages (free and premium tools)	-	#8, #10 (both free tools)
seo audit	7 articles, 2 landing pages,	Guides	#5 (guide), #6 (landing leafage premium tool)
free seo tools	7 articles, 2 landing pages (free tools)	Listicles	#4 (listicle), #7 (free tools landing page)
affiliate selling for beginners	9 blog posts	Guides	#3 with 3 tract links (all guides)
free keyword probe tool	8 landing pages, 2 articles	Listicles	#2 (listicle), #4 (free tool)
keyword rankings	7 articles, 2 landing pages (free tools)	5 guides, 1 explanation post, 1 listicle	#1 (article), #4 (free tool)
how to go an affiliate marketer	Articles	Guides	#3 with 3 tract links (all guides)
keyword difficulty	5 articles, 2 forum posts, 2 landing pages (free and premium tools)	Guides	#1 (free tool), #5 (guide)

So erstwhile determination are lone nonfiction ranking, your champion chances mightiness beryllium by diversifying with articles. And if you spot antithetic types of pages ranking, accidental an nonfiction and a landing page, there’s a accidental of ranking by creating some these types.

You don’t request little circumstantial keywords to diversify

We’d expect long-tail keywords to person less aggregate ranking instances (be it cannibalization oregon diversification) due to the fact that the intent would beryllium much defined from the query.

To measurement this, I compared connection number organisation successful keywords with azygous rankings and aggregate rankings utilizing boxplots.

As you tin see, the boxplots are astir identical, truthful nary correlation could beryllium astatine play here.

However, an absorbing takeaway present is that if we look astatine a histogram of connection number frequence successful the aggregate URL information set, we spot that astir keywords occupied the 3–4 connection number range. That indicates ranking aggregate times for rather circumstantial hunt queries is decidedly possible.

Surprisingly, aggregate rankings were much communal for precocious KD keywords

I besides wanted to spot if it would beryllium harder to get aggregate rankings for keywords with precocious KD worth (Ahrefs metric), i.e., keywords with SERPs dominated by pages with a beardown backlink profile.

Again, I compared aggregate rankings with azygous rankings.

Here, we tin spot a wide difference. The median of aggregate rankings is mode higher than azygous rankings (64 vs. 37).

One happening is for definite with specified a result—you tin fertile aggregate times, adjacent for highly competitory keywords.

Final thoughts

Let’s sum up.

Multiple rankings successful Google make 2 effects: cannibalization and diversification.

This means that classical SEO mentation is wrong—you don’t request to spell and hole each keyword with aggregate rankings.

This besides means that you tin perchance instrumentality vantage of Google’s propensity for aggregate rankings and tin get much postulation retired of a keyword. That said, I’d see it a pro move, which whitethorn person a precocious accidental outgo compared to targeting immoderate different keyword with conscionable 1 page. That’s because:

• The further rankings whitethorn not last long.
• You whitethorn “outrank yourself”, and the leafage you outrank volition get less clicks.
• You whitethorn request much costly types of contented than what you already have. For instance, a escaped instrumentality that serves the intent amended than an nonfiction that already ranks.

Thanks for reading! If you person immoderate questions oregon comments, find maine connected X oregon LinkedIn.