Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to combine 2 pages (same domain) that rank for same keyword?
-
Hi Mozzers,
A quick question. In the last few months I have noticed that for a number of keywords I am having 2 different pages on my domain show up in the SERP. Always right next to each other (for example, position #7 and #8 or #3 and #4). So in the SERP it looks something like:
- www.mycompetition1.com
- www.mycompetition2.com
- www.mywebsite.com/page1.html
4) www.mywebsite.com**/page2.html**
5) www.mycompetition3.com
Now, I actually need both pages since the content on both pages is different - but on the same topic. Both pages have links to them, but page1.html always tends to have more. So, what is the best practice to tell Google that I only want 1 page to rank? Of course, the idea is that by combining the SEO Juice of both pages, I can push my way up to position 2 or 1.
Does anybody have any experience in this? Any advice is much appreciated.
-
Hi there,
Realistically, the tag should be used for duplicates, yes. How "duplicated" a page is, is subjective: a page with 50% of the same content as another page is probably going to count as duplicated as far as Google goes... where that line of duplication acceptability goes isn't something any of us really know.
For pages where the content is totally different besides the header and footer, you technically shouldn't use canonicalisation. However, experiments have shown that Google honours the tag, even if the pages aren't duplicates. Dr. Pete did an experiment when the tag came out (admittedly a few years ago) where he showed that you could radically reduce the number of pages Google had indexed for a site by canonicalising everything to the home page. I personally had a client do this by accident a couple of years ago, and sure enough, their number of indexed pages dropped very quickly, along with all the rankings those pages had. As an ecommerce site that was ranking for clothing terms, this was very very bad. It took about six weeks to get those rankings back again after we fixed the tags, and the tags were fixed within about five days (should have been quicker but our urgent request went into a dev queue).
So the answer would be that Google seems to honour the tag no matter the content of the pages, but I am pretty sure that if you asked a Googler, they'd tell you that it should only be used for dupes or near-dupes.
-
Hi Jane,
Thanks for the advice. One question. I was under the impression that the rel="canonical" tag was for two pages that had the same content to let google know that the page it is pointing to is the original and should be the one to rank. Do you have any experience using them between 2 pages that have totally different content (minus the header and footer)?
Thanks again.
-
If you are happy for the second page to still exist but not rank, you should use the canonical tag to point the second page to the first one. This will lend the first page the majority of the strength of the second page and perhaps improve its authority and ranking as a result. However, the second page will no longer be indexed because the canonical tag tells Google: "ignore this page over here; it should be considered the same as the canonical version, here."
Again, this can benefit the first page, but it does mean that the second page will no longer rank at all. Only do this if you are okay with that scenario.
Cheers,
Jane
-
I'm afraid that there isn't a perfect solution, but there are various options to consider.
1.) The only way to "combine the SEO juice of both pages" is to 301 redirect one of the pages to the other (and add the content from the old page to the remaining one). However, this means that the second page will no longer exist for your website visitors (coming from organic search or not).
2.) You can use a rel=canonical tag pointing from the secondary page to the preferred one to encourage Google to list only the preferred one the pages in search results. In addition, you could use the robots.txt file or noindex meta tag (the meta tag is the preferred option) to block search engines from indexing the page and having it appear in search results. However, this will not "combine the SEO juice."
Assuming that it is crucial that the second page still exist on your website, I would probably not do anything. You appear twice in the first page of results -- great! Why mess with that? I would just focus on doing all the good SEO best practices and earning more links to those two pages to push them higher over time. (Of course, if I knew your exact situation, I would probably have additional suggestions.)
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How Much Domain Age Matter In Ranking?
I am very confused about domain age. I read many articles about domain age, some experts say domain age does matter in ranking and some experts say it doesn't matter in the ranking. Kindly guide me about domain age.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MuhammadQasimAttari0 -
Is it ok to repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?
I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term. I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information? If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead? If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word? Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated! V.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vitzz1 -
Keyword difficulty and time to rank
Hello, Is there a correlation between the keyword difficult and the time it takes to rank ? In other words let's say I try to rank for the keyword "seo" and it is going to take 2 years to rank 1 st whereas if I go for "best seo tools in 2018" and it takes just 2 weeks ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Keyword Ranking Fluctuations
Hi Guys I am currently working on a website where one of the keyword targets is fluctuating. The keyword is fluctuating between page 2 and page 5. What makes this strange is that we are not experiencing the issue with any other keyword targets. They are all ranking fine. It is only 1 keyword. The keyword target happens to be the main homepage keyword target - not sure if this makes a difference? The homepage targets 2 keyword e.g. Business Offices & Accessories. The homepage ranks perfectly fine for e.g. Business Accessories but is fluctuating for e.g. Business Offices! Very strange. What makes it even stranger - the keyword variations of the fluctuating keyword e.g. office for business - these variations are all fine and not fluctuating. Its only 1 keyword. If anyone has any ideas or feedback that would be great! Thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Ranking 2 pages on the same domain in the same SERP
I thought it was generally said that Google will favour 1 page per domain for a particular SERP, but I have seen examples where that is not the case (i.e. Same domain is ranking 2 different pages on the 1st page of the SERPs...) Are there any "tricks" to taking up 2 first page SERP positions, or am I mistaken that this doesn't always happen?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ullamalm0 -
Ranking for local searches without city specific keywords?
Hey guys! I had asked this question a few months ago and now that we are seeing even more implicit information determining search results, I want to ask it again..in two parts. Is is STILL best practice for on-page to add the city name to your titles, h1s, content etc? It seems that this will eventually be an outdated tactic, right? If there is a decent amount of search volume without any city name in the search query (ie. "storefont signs", but no search volume for the phrase when specific cities are added (ie. "storefront signs west palm beach) is it worth trying to rank and optimize for that search term for a company in West Palm Beach? We can assume that if there are 20,000 monthly searches for the non-location specific term that SOME of them would be fairly local, so do we optimize the page without the city name and trust Google to display results with a local intent...therefore showing our client's site in the SERPS when someone searches "sign company" and they are IN West Palm Beach? If there is any confusion, please just ask me to clarify! I think this would be a great WhiteBoard Friday topic for Rand!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Stuck on Page 2 - What Would You Do?!?
My site is : http://goo.gl/JgK1e My main keyword is : Plastic Bins i have been going back and forth between page 1 and 2 for this keyword and i was wondering if any of you could provide any guidance as to why i can't get on the top of page 1, and stay there... My site has been around for a while, we believe we have a great user experience, all unique, fresh content, and the lowest prices... I must be missing out on something major if I cannot get a steady page 1 ranking... Any thoughts? Thanks in advance...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850 -
Keyword-Rich Domains - Redirect?
Hi, Mozzers- I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area. I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate. 2 Questions: Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud. Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons? If you need additional info, please PM me for details. Thank you, friends! LHC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lhc670