---
name: query-to-page-mapping
description: Use when several pages compete for the same terms or you cannot say which page owns which query.
---

# Map Queries To Pages From Real Data

Mapping is usually done in a spreadsheet before the site exists, then never checked against reality. The result is a plan that says page A targets a term while Google actually serves page B. Fixing this from the plan rather than from data means arguing with a search engine that has already made a decision.

## What you need first

- Search Console query and page data for at least 90 days
- a full URL inventory of indexable pages
- clarity on which pages are commercially important

## Method

1. Pull the query-plus-page report so each row is a query and the URL that received impressions for it, not aggregated by either alone.
2. Group by query and flag any query where two or more URLs took at least 10 percent of impressions each. That is real cannibalisation; a 95/5 split is not.
3. For each flagged query, decide the winner by conversion value, not by current ranking - the better ranking page is often a blog post stealing a commercial term.
4. Change internal anchor text pointing at the loser so it no longer uses the target phrase, and point the loser at the winner with an exact-match internal link. This resolves most conflicts without deleting anything.
5. Where two pages genuinely serve the same intent, merge and redirect rather than differentiating, because differentiation attempts usually produce two mediocre pages.
6. Rebuild the map from the corrected data and keep it as the source of truth, with each URL owning one primary query and a named cluster of secondaries.

## What this produces

A one-to-one map of primary query to URL, backed by impression data, with conflicts resolved by merge or internal linking.

## Where this goes wrong

- Treating every multi-URL query as cannibalisation when Google is simply testing, which is normal in the first few weeks after publishing.
- Redirecting the older page to the newer one, discarding the accumulated links that made it rank.
- Rewriting the losing page to target a different term without changing internal anchors, so the old signals persist.

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From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/query-to-page-mapping