Internal linking 'confuses' Google?

[ToffeeLa]

Sounds a bit of an odd thread title, but bear with me.

Let's say you have a page for the competitive phrase 'Best lawyers in New Mexico' and another page, which links to it internally, aimed at the less competitive but more focused phrase 'Top DUI lawyers in Albuquerque'. For some months, both rank as expected for the phrases for which they are intended.

But all of a sudden, the Albuquerque page starts appearing in the results for the 'best lawyers in New Mexico' - no longer on the first page but four pages into the results. The only relevant phrase on the page is the internal link to the original page (apart obviously from the fact that it is talking about a top group of lawyers in a big NM town). And the original ranking page no longer appears in the results, although it happily appears as a result for other queries.

Anyone else had this happen to them and any ideas? I've tried de-optimising the 'Albuquerque page', although it was never that relevant for the whole state in the first place. Not enough external links to the state page? Search intent is better on the Albuquerque page? I'm tempted to either remove the internal link completely or delete the Albuquerque page but would prefer to understand a little more about what is going on here.

Had this happen on a couple of topic clusters on one site so far.

 

[JOoa0ky]

I would assume that the Keyword difficulty is higher for NEW MEXICO than for ALBUQUERQUE.

Google should understand that top lawyer in albuquerque should also be considered for best lawyer in new mexico since it is located within the same state. So, I don't see why it wouldn't pick up rankings for best lawyer in new mexico albeit probably lower in the SERP than a page specifically targeting new mexico.

However if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying the Best Lawyer in New Mexico page disappeared from the SERPS? I don't really think internal linking would drag that down...

From what I understand... I think ryuzaki explained it before but every link out from your page just dilutes the total link juice. If both pages are ranking, they should be distributing link juice to each other. It wouldn't necessarily drag it off the SERPs though.

For example if you have a ranking page and it has 100 link power and it links out to 2 pages. Each of those 2 pages would get like 50 link power. Just sort of a rough idea of what happens. I don't think you would "lose" link power just linking to something not as relevant. Although it may dilute the link power to the other outgoing links on that page.

Example would be 100 link power but you link out to 2 relevant internal pages but 1 unrelevant page. Each outgoing link would be 33 link power. If you deleted that link to the unrelevant page it would restore 50 link power to each of the 2 relevant ones.

Kind of makes sense?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Two things come to mind: 1) keyword cannibalization and 2) a temporary situation due to an update (which we are experiencing)

This is typically how keyword cannibalization works. You would expect Google to understand that both are relevant, but one is more relevant and more targeted and that's the one that should rank. But for some dumb reason Google goes "I see 2 pages that could qualify to rank, therefore, I'll rank both of them lower". It's illogical to the point where I resisted believing this concept even existed until I saw it enough times to accept it as reality.

The other option is that Google is playing with intent and whatever else they might be doing and it's causing confusion for now until it shakes out. I look at a lot of rankings for individual pages in Ahrefs and see these blips pretty frequently.

You'll have one page ranking steady and then it tanks to like #30 and 5 other pages all appear between #40 and #50 like they're cannibalizing each other, and within a couple weeks Google sorts itself out and the original pops back to where it should be.

Assuming it's an actual problem and not one that will correct itself, I'd first de-optimize the one you don't want to rank, if possible without hurting the keyword you do want to rank. The other solution would involve a 301 redirect but that's obviously not the goal here. You see this kind of thing happen with overlapping zones on Google Maps for local keywords too. Two neighboring areas that overlap will often have one of them ranking for both and sometimes they drag each other down.

Depending on how long it's been going on, I'd say to wait and see if it clears itself up first. There's the obvious issue of Albuquerque being the largest city in the state, so it makes sense to consider that relevant. Hopefully someone with more local SEO experience can chime in.

 

[ToffeeLa]

Thanks for the replies.

I would assume that the Keyword difficulty is higher for NEW MEXICO than for ALBUQUERQUE.

Yes, 'New Mexico' would be substantially harder KD and larger traffic number than 'DUI in Albuquerque' (to use examples).

Two things come to mind: 1) keyword cannibalization and 2) a temporary situation due to an update (which we are experiencing)

I agree with you about possible keyword cannibalization or search intent being possibilities, although confusing what are in both cases smaller areas or towns for a state would logically seem to be an incorrect answer for the search query.

Thinking further about this and checking deeper into Google Search Console history, the CTR for both of the smaller location pages is substantially higher (not unexpected as one goes more granular with geographic search terms).

Also both of the larger location pages (the state ones in the example) use 'best' in the url and title. One started showing the 'incorrect' page in late July, while the other started 'testing' one page versus another from March through to May and then switched permanently in late May. Around that time is when the Product Review update was being worked on, although neither are 'products' in the classic sense. And neither of them come out with a verdict on what would be the best, which you would expect from a product review. So I'll try taking 'best' out of the page title and seeing if that has any effect.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@ToffeeLa, I found another example of what I've described in the quote below happening:

You'll have one page ranking steady and then it tanks to like #30 and 5 other pages all appear between #40 and #50 like they're cannibalizing each other, and within a couple weeks Google sorts itself out and the original pops back to where it should be.

​

This is exactly what I was saying. About 2 weeks of confusion and then Google sorts it out again. Two weeks is an eternity in internet time but it usually does clear back up. Hoping this gives you some more insight into what's going on in your case and helps to some degree.