Keyword cannibalization is the condition that results when a single website targets the same keyword unintentionally across multiple pages or blogs. The effects of keyword cannibalization can be unwelcoming as it can make an unimportant page rank over an important page. Also, it can bring down the rankings for both the said pages. Here is how you can remedy keyword cannibalization in easy ways.

De-optimise
This can be the best approach if you have a page that ranks for several keywords and gets a lot of organic traffic. Consider you do not want this page to rank for a given keyword as it is cannibalizing the other page that you want to rank. In this case, you may not be interested in deleting the page since it is still receiving a lot of traffic for other keywords. You might not also want to go for redirects as this page could be still valuable to you. The solution here is to de-optimize the page for the given keyword alone.

To do this, examine the content and remove those references pertaining to that keyword for which you do not want the page to rank. Alter any internal links that point out to the undesirable page. Either swap the destination of the links leading to that page or remove them completely. The prime target here is the links with keyword-rich anchors. This is because any links containing the undesirable keyword in the anchor text might be leading the undesirable page to rank for the said keyword. The problem will be solved if you change the anchor text to something else. In addition, it also helps to check if there are any external inbound links directing to that given page that uses undesirable keywords. If this happens, contact the linking sites and request them to alter the link.

Merge
You might use this option is you have two similar pages that rank for the same keyword. Since both these pages can contain good information on the said keyword, you might not want to delete either of them. Both of these pages might have a few inbound links that can be valuable too. Hence the right approach here that can work for you is to merge both the resources into one master resource. This approach can also help preserve the link juice. This is a great approach since all the links are now directing to the single page which can also lead to higher rankings.

Delete
You can make use of this strategy if you have a low quality page cannibalizing a similar but better page. If you feel that the cannibalizing page is not at all valuable to your visitors, you can delete the said page. However, in this case you must find out if the page has any inbound links before hitting the delete button. The way to do this is to go the site explorer and checking the number of inbound links by entering the URL. If you find it necessary, add a 301 redirect from the page to the similar page that you want to rank high. If you do not find any inbound links, you can straightaway delete the page.

Noindex
This approach can be very useful with pages that are highly useful to the visitors but at the same time you do not want those pages to rank in a way cannibalizing the other more important page. In most cases, a lot of websites are found to noindex the blog category pages as they might be cannibalizing the more important main pages.

Canonicalize
The purpose of a canonical tag is to tell the search engines that a particular URL stands for the master copy of a page. By using a canonical tag, you can avoid problems created by what is called as duplicate content that appears on multiple URLs. To make it clear, the canonical text indicates the search engines which version of the URL the site owner wants to appear for the search results. This method is appropriate when you have two similar pages that are simultaneously important, but still you want the search engines to rank one page over the other.