cannibalisation seo comes up in nearly every audit we run. Rarely because the topic is complex: more often because it is handled last, once the budget is already spent.
Spotting orphan pages
A page no internal link points to technically exists but has almost no chance of performing. On older sites they often represent a fifth of published content.
Identifying them is easy; deciding their fate is not. Each orphan must be attached, merged or removed — leaving it as is, is not a neutral option.
Keeping the structure alive
A cocoon built once then forgotten degrades with every publication. The habit to install is simple: before publishing, every new piece must know which set it belongs to and who will link to it.
Asking that upfront avoids accumulating isolated content that will need attaching later, at a far higher cost.
The real cost of doing nothing
An untreated technical problem does not stay stable: it spreads. Every new piece published on a faulty structure inherits the defect, and remediation cost grows with volume.
That is why fixing a structural flaw on a hundred-page site beats waiting until you have a thousand. The work is the same; the cleanup is not.
The three-link rule
Each secondary piece points to its main page, to a sibling of the same level, and receives at least one link from the main page. That minimal reciprocity is enough to form a coherent set.
Beyond that, extra links quickly show diminishing returns, and end up diluting the very signal you meant to concentrate.
A silo is not a folder
The most frequent confusion is believing a cocoon is built in the URL tree. It is built in contextual links, inside the text, where they actually carry meaning.
A clean URL structure helps readability, but it is internal linking that transmits authority and signals thematic kinship.
Check before moving on
- Schedule a review in six months
- Assign each point to a named person
- Document the decision, not just the action
- Remove before adding
What it changes for the reader
It is tempting to treat this as a purely technical constraint. In practice, each of these optimisations translates into a clearer, faster or more predictable experience for the person reading.
That is precisely why engines care about these criteria: they approximate, imperfectly, genuine user satisfaction.
Read next
- La page pilier : ni fourre-tout, ni sommaire
- Silos thématiques : structurer sans enfermer
- Maillage interne : la méthode des ancres utiles
In practice
Bring this list to your next weekly review and assign each item to a person, with a deadline. A technical topic without an owner stays an untreated technical topic.
