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Step 3: How to find cannibalization issues

A step-by-step workflow for finding and resolving cannibalization issues

Updated today

💡 Why is this important

Keyword cannibalization can harm your website’s performance by splitting your authority, reducing click-through rates (CTR), and confusing search engines. Instead of helping your site rank better, competing pages dilute your SEO efforts, potentially hurting your rankings and wasting resources.

❓ What’s in it for you?

By resolving keyword cannibalization, you’ll:

  • Boost rankings for your target keywords.

  • Increase organic traffic by focusing efforts on the most relevant pages.

  • Improve user experience with more precise, more targeted content.

  • Save your crawl budget for more important pages.

🛠️ What you’ll need:

  • Surfer: Topical Map to generate a Cannibalization Report

  • Google Sheets: For organizing and analyzing data

📆 When to do it and how often?

  • Do a keyword cannibalization check quarterly to be sure your site stays optimized.

  • Run the check after the algorithm updates.

  • Run cannibalization audit after major content releases.

Prepare

  1. Go to Surfer and navigate to the Topical Map.

  2. If you don’t have a Topical Map for your domain, create one and wait a few minutes for Surfer to prepare it. Here's how ->

Generate Your Cannibalization Report

  1. Open a Topical Map for your Domain.

  2. Click Export → Select Generate Cannibalization Report.

  3. Once processed, download the report (CSV).

Analyze in Google Sheets

  1. Open the CSV and add 3 new columns:

    • Number of URLs:

      =COUNTIF(A:A, A2)

    • Total Impressions for Keyword:

      =SUMIF($A$2:A, A2, $D$2:D)

    • % of Impressions (per URL):

      =(D2*100)/E2

  2. Create a Pivot Table:

    • Select all data → Insert → Pivot Table → New Sheet

    • Rows:

      • Keyword

      • URL

    • Values:

      • Impressions

      • % of Impressions

      • Position

    • Sort:

      • For keywords → Descending by SUM of Impressions

      • For URLs → Descending by SUM of % of Impressions

    • Filter:

      • Exclude brand keywords

        (Filters → Text does not contain → “Your Brand Name”)

🕵️‍♀️ What to look for

You’re looking for overlap—keywords split between multiple URLs.

It’s a problem if:

  • Two or more URLs share similar % of impressions and similar positions

It’s not a problem if:

  • One URL dominates (70%+ impressions)

  • It’s a branded keyword

  • Extra URLs rank poorly (page 3+)

Prioritize Fixes

Start where it matters most:

  1. High priority: Pages tied to conversions, product, revenue.

  2. Medium priority: Pillar, service, or high-traffic pages.

  3. Low priority: Supporting or long-tail content.

How to fix it

Option A: Merge

If the topic is very similar and the user intent is clear, merge the articles into a single piece of content.

→ Remember to 301 redirect the removed URL.

Option B: Internal linking (signal the target)

Point the search engine in the right direction with internal linking. Use exact-match anchor text in the cannibalizing article to link to the target page. This way, you will give a clear sign that there is a pair of keywords and URLs that you are targeting.

Option C: Separate the intent

Rewrite one of the articles to focus on a different (but related) intent.

→ Check SERPs to validate the difference in search intent.

💡 Options B and C send strong signals to search engines about which page deserves to rank.

🎉 That's it! Now, let's show you how to track and measure your progress in Surfer ->

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