8 Ways Keyword Cannibalization Affects Indexing and SEO

What is Keyword Cannibalization?

Keyword cannibalization, or content cannibalization, is an SEO issue that occurs when multiple pages on a website compete for the same keyword or search intent.

This overlap weakens the conflicting pages’ authority, backlinks, and CTR instead of boosting the website’s overall SEO performance. As a result, Google might index or rank the wrong page, or worse, ignore both pages entirely.

Here is an example of keyword cannibalization:

Both pages on Men’s Health are competing for the keyword “what is creatine.” While the first result had additional insights from dietitians, both pages answer the same question, making them prone to cannibalizing each other.

Below, we’ll enumerate the specific ways keyword cannibalization can affect your pages’ indexing status and, by extension, your site’s overall SEO performance:

How Does Keyword Cannibalization Impact Indexing and SEO?

When multiple pages on your site target the same keyword, you essentially pit them against each other. Unfortunately, content cannibalization often happens inadvertently. When left overlooked, this can blow out of proportion, resulting in SEO problems that can be tough to fix. 

Below, we enumerated eight ways keyword cannibalization can impact page indexing and sitewide SEO performance:

1. Confuses Google about which page to index and rank

Extreme cases of keyword cannibalization can have a semblance to duplicate content, which is a situation when two different pages share identical or similar content. 

When two pages cannibalize each other on a website, Google may treat the conflicting pages as duplicates. This will force Google to determine which of the two pages is more relevant to index and rank. 

Instead of adding both pages to Google’s index, one page may be left out. Worse, Google may even index the less relevant page and ignore the one you prefer to rank. Even if you declare a preferred page as canonical, Google retains complete liberty to select a canonical page based on the content’s perceived relevance and ranking signals.

This confusion weakens your SEO effort, potentially reducing the visibility of important pages. 

2. Lowers the SERP ranking of conflicting pages

In many cases, Google retains conflicting pages on SERPs despite keyword cannibalization. But since both pages compete for the same keyword or search intent—meaning they essentially answer the same search query—they end up diluting each other’s ranking potential.

This can manifest in either one of three things:

First, the cannibal pages’ rankings are unstable and fluctuating. One page ranks higher one day but loses its position to the cannibal page on another day.

Secondly, you have multiple weak pages ranked at the bottom of SERPs, struggling to gain any tangible visibility and drive traffic.

Third, one page gets permanently ranked higher than the other but is prevented from achieving its optimal position. In this case, consolidating the content will significantly improve the superior page’s performance in SERPs.

3. Weaker pages get prematurely deindexed

When multiple pages compete for the same keyword, Google may evaluate the pages’ relative authority and relevance, prematurely deindexing weaker pages.

This happens because search engines prioritize indexing pages that offer unique, high-quality insights. Pages deemed less valuable, such as those with thinner content or fewer backlinks, may be removed from Google’s index altogether.

Deindexation eliminates potential traffic from those pages, but may also signal to Google a lack of sitewide content quality, further impacting SEO.

4. Wastes crawl budget

Google allocates a crawl budget for each website, setting the amount of resources Google will spend on crawling a website’s content.

Keyword cannibalization squanders your valuable crawl budget when multiple pages target the same keyword or search intent.

Google will waste resources crawling redundant pages and divert resources from discovering newly published or recently updated content. This may delay the indexing of important pages or fresh content, which hurts your SEO.

If weaker pages are repeatedly crawled but no ranking improvement is observed, they consume the crawl budget without providing any real benefit. 

5. Unnecessarily spreads ranking signals among cannibal pages

Keyword cannibalization has a strong tendency to split ranking signals, such as backlinks, internal links, and user engagement metrics, rather than consolidating them into one authoritative page.

This makes it harder for a single strong page to gain momentum in search rankings. Instead, you get multiple weaker pages that hardly rank as good as they would have if consolidated.

By extension, diluting ranking signals reduces the impact you gain from link-building efforts and SEO campaigns, as none of the cannibalized pages achieve their full potential. This results in low positioning, reduced visibility, and less organic traffic. 

6. Creates internal linking issues

When you maintain multiple pages discussing the same topic, you face a dilemma: which page should you link to?

Like backlinks, internal links are sources of link equity that help boost a linked page’s authoritativeness. They also connect your web pages, creating a network of interrelated topics. 

When you have keyword cannibalization, your internal links may point to multiple competing pages instead of one. In addition to spreading link equity too thin, this creates a confusing navigational structure for both Google and users, weakening SEO impact.

Resolving cannibalization simplifies the internal linking process, strengthening your site’s structure.

7. Reduces click-through rate of both pages

When you have keyword cannibalization, both results may appear on the same SERP page for the same query. This may present users with a confusing choice, leading to split user attention and lower clickthrough rates for both pages, resulting in lower traffic.

In some cases, when users see multiple similar options, they become less likely to click either. This dilution of user interest might signal to Google that none of the pages is the best choice, which may drag both pages’ ranking over time.

8. May affect user experience and conversion rates

Keyword cannibalization isn’t always absolute—just because two pages cannibalize each other doesn’t mean they have the same content. Most of the time, these conflicting pages only overlap. In other words, each individual page may cover a topic similarly to some extent but also provide unique insights.

This might create a poor user journey when searchers struggle to find the most relevant information. For instance, visitors land on a less relevant page than the one optimized for their needs. Often, this balloons bounce rates while lowering user engagement.

In this case, consolidating the content of conflicting pages is more favorable to ensure users always get their queries satisfied when they land on your content.

Can IndexCheckr Detect Keyword Cannibalization?

IndexCheckr can monitor the telltale signs of keyword cannibalization, like sudden deindexation and erratic indexing status. The tool tracks if pages are indexed on Google and sends users email updates for any changes.

However, tracking the signs and uncovering the problem are two different things. For this, you need a keyword cannibalization tool, like FeedMyRank. These tools pull your data from Google Search Console, making it easy to spot cannibalization.

This data-driven approach lets you spot keyword cannibalization early before it causes irreversible damage to your website’s SEO performance.

Pair a content cannibalization tool with IndexCheckr to track whether your optimization efforts are effective in preventing the premature deindexation of your cannibal pages.

Try IndexCheckr now for 50 FREE credits—no credit card requirement or strings attached.