Find and Fix Query Cannibalisation

Cannibalisation is usually diagnosed by eye and fixed by deleting one page, which is often wrong. The real signal is instability - Google alternating between URLs for the same query because neither is a clear best answer. Deleting the wrong one loses history; the fix is usually structural, changing which page targets what and how they link.

The skill file

---
name: cannibalisation-audit
description: Use when a query keeps swapping between two of your URLs in the results, or a page that once ranked well has drifted down without any obvious cause.
---

# Find and Fix Query Cannibalisation

Cannibalisation is usually diagnosed by eye and fixed by deleting one page, which is often wrong. The real signal is instability - Google alternating between URLs for the same query because neither is a clear best answer. Deleting the wrong one loses history; the fix is usually structural, changing which page targets what and how they link.

## What you need first

- Search Console query-by-page export for 6 months
- the URL that ranks today for each affected query
- internal anchor text pointing at each candidate page

## Method

1. For each query, list every URL that has received impressions. Two or more URLs with meaningful impressions on the same query is the pattern worth investigating.
2. Check volatility rather than overlap alone: if the ranking URL changed 3 or more times in 6 months, that is genuine cannibalisation. Stable overlap where one page clearly dominates is usually harmless.
3. Decide the winner by inbound equity and conversion, not by which currently ranks. The currently ranking page is often the accidental winner of a coin toss.
4. Audit internal anchor text. Mixed anchors pointing at both URLs with the same phrase is frequently the actual cause, and repointing them fixes it without touching either page.
5. Differentiate the loser rather than deleting it - retarget it to an adjacent query the cluster needs anyway, and rewrite its title and H1 to match that instead.
6. If the loser cannot be differentiated because the topic genuinely is one page, merge and 301 into the winner, then update every internal link to point at the target directly rather than through the redirect.

## What this produces

A per-query resolution recording the designated winner, the anchor text changes, and whether the second URL was retargeted or merged.

## Where this goes wrong

- calling every overlap cannibalisation when stable overlap with one dominant URL costs nothing
- keeping internal links pointing through the redirect chain after a merge, which dilutes the signal you just consolidated
- deleting the page that currently ranks lower even though it holds all the external links

---

From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/cannibalisation-audit

What you need first

• Search Console query-by-page export for 6 months
• the URL that ranks today for each affected query
• internal anchor text pointing at each candidate page

Method

1. 01 For each query, list every URL that has received impressions. Two or more URLs with meaningful impressions on the same query is the pattern worth investigating.
2. 02 Check volatility rather than overlap alone: if the ranking URL changed 3 or more times in 6 months, that is genuine cannibalisation. Stable overlap where one page clearly dominates is usually harmless.
3. 03 Decide the winner by inbound equity and conversion, not by which currently ranks. The currently ranking page is often the accidental winner of a coin toss.
4. 04 Audit internal anchor text. Mixed anchors pointing at both URLs with the same phrase is frequently the actual cause, and repointing them fixes it without touching either page.
5. 05 Differentiate the loser rather than deleting it - retarget it to an adjacent query the cluster needs anyway, and rewrite its title and H1 to match that instead.
6. 06 If the loser cannot be differentiated because the topic genuinely is one page, merge and 301 into the winner, then update every internal link to point at the target directly rather than through the redirect.

What this produces

A per-query resolution recording the designated winner, the anchor text changes, and whether the second URL was retargeted or merged.

Where this goes wrong

• calling every overlap cannibalisation when stable overlap with one dominant URL costs nothing
• keeping internal links pointing through the redirect chain after a merge, which dilutes the signal you just consolidated
• deleting the page that currently ranks lower even though it holds all the external links

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