Fixing Keyword Cannibalization: A Canonical Audit & Content Consolidation
Client: A mid-sized B2B SaaS company with a large, unorganized blog.
Challenges We Faced
The client’s site was “competing with itself,” which was confusing Google and killing their “money” page rankings:
Keyword Cannibalization
A Keyword & Duplicate Content Analysis found 5 different blog posts were competing for “best project management software.”
Wrong Page Ranking
A low-intent blog post (from 2019) was outranking their high-intent “Software” (money) page.
Duplicate Site Versions
The site was resolving on all 4 versions (http, https, www, non-www), splitting its authority.
Diluted canonicalisation seo
Link equity was spread thin across multiple “duplicate” pages.
No Internal Linking Between Similar Posts
Related blog posts weren’t linked, causing Google to treat them as separate competing pages.
Fix Your Cannibalization Issues
“Is your blog stealing traffic from your “money” pages? Our canonical tag implementation service will fix your cannibalization issues.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Comprehensive Canonical Tag Audit
We used Screaming Frog to find all 4 versions of the site and all competing pages.
301 Redirect vs. Canonical Strategy
We implemented site-wide 301 redirects to consolidate all http and www versions into a single, secure https:// (non-www) version.
For the cannibalization issue, we consolidated the 5 blog posts into one “pillar” post.
Technical Tag Implementation
This was the key. We placed a rel=”canonical” tag on the “wrong” blog post, pointing all its authority to the high-intent “Software” (money) page.
Validation & Monitoring
We verified canonical and redirect behavior in Google Search Console and Screaming Frog, then monitored indexation, rankings, and URL signals to ensure authority consolidation was working as intended.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword Cannibalization Issues (GSC) | 25 | 2 | -92% |
| Ranking (“…software” keyword) | #12 (Wrong Page) | #3 (Correct Page) | +9 spots (Corrected) |
| Qualified MQLs (from organic) | 15/mo | 45/mo | +200% |
Free Cannibalization Audit
“Not sure why the wrong page is ranking? Book a Free URL Analysis and let our canonical tag optimisation team find the problem!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- A 301 redirect is a command. A canonical tag is a suggestion. Know when to use each.
- Don’t let your blog compete with your “money” pages. Use a canonical url in seo to point the “wrong” page’s authority to the “right” one.
- A Canonical Tag Auditmust check for http/httpsand www/non-www versions of your site.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- Fixing the www vs. non-www issue consolidated their domain authority.
- Using a rel=”canonical” tag to point the old blog post to the “money” page was the key to fixing the “wrong page ranking” issue.
- Using GSC’s URL Inspection tool to check the “Google-declared canonical” vs. the “User-declared canonical.”
