Case: canonical consolidation merged 4 near-duplicate templates, +19% on survivors

Case: canonical consolidation merged 4 near-duplicate templates, +19% on survivors

Four page types ('best X', 'top X', 'X reviews', 'X guide') covered the same intent — self-cannibalizing across 5,500 query pairs. SOP:

— Step 1 (analyst): ran a cannibalization report. Gate: 2+ URLs ranking for one query within 10 positions = conflict.
— Step 2 (strategy): picked one canonical template per intent by historical clicks. Gate: winner = most clicks over 90 days.
— Step 3 (dev): 301'd the three losers' URLs to the winner, merged any unique data blocks first.
— Step 4 (QA): verified single-hop 301s, no chains. Gate: redirect chain length must equal 1.

Outcome: 16,500 redirected URLs. Surviving pages +19% clicks. 'Multiple pages ranking' conflicts dropped 71%.

Guardrail: merge unique data before redirecting, or you bury content the loser was ranking for.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.