This is what I'm worried about as well. The structure should in theory be working fine, I'm redirecting as much as I can to my landing page and doing most backlinks there (that's where I want the traffic). In the long run, only the landing page should rank, but you know how Google can be. I just never had this happen before where 3 different pages seem to be fighting for the same keyword.
I'm constantly seeing 2 pages of the same site ranking under each other (homepage or category page + article page most of the time) for a niche that I'm researching at the moment, so ranking more than 1 page from the same site is pretty common to google if they think that both pages are relevant or if they don't have better content to show for that keyword.
Anyway, if you think that only the landing page should rank you can do one of these....
1) add a canonical tag to the landing page so that google considers the landing page as being the most relevant for that keyword
2) 301-redirect the other 2 pages to the landing page
3) add canonical tag to the landing page and 1 internal link from each one of the other 2 pages, with the keyword you wish to rank the landing page for, to the landing page
And then re-submit the sitemap to GSC
I can understand why you think this, I had this impression at first. But there are still some tricks up my sleeve I'm going to do! As you said, it's difficult to judge without the whole picture. I'm only in the beginning of building solid relevant backlinks, it's a job that takes a while in my niche. My competitors aren't really doing that actively so I should be able to gain on them there.
yep, I can't say for sure what you can do without knowing the niche, your competition, the keyword you're targeting, etc... I'm glad you understand this, but I'm also glad that you have other tricks up your sleeve because there wasn't anything else I could say
I appreciate your help and you taking the time to help with some guidance. It's exactly why I use this forum. I am mainly here to learn, even though I am very confident in my SEO strategy, I feel it's always nice to ask these things on a forum with other interested individuals.
meh, it's not like I did anything special. I'm active on the forum because I have a lot of time at the moment, and I'd like to stay updated with google's misbehavior, and while I do this I sometimes reply to questions that I feel I can help. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I don't care. Everyone makes mistakes
Anyway, that's all for now. What I'd like to say is that next time when you quote someone's replies make sure to include their username in the quote, otherwise they'll not see your replies. The only reason I saw your reply is because I sometimes backtrack my replies precisely for cases like this, and that's why I saw it. But had I not backtracked I would have missed your reply and you'd have probably been one of those guys that goes like "yeah, another moron that gives an answer and then never follows back", when in reality it was your fault that you didn't quote me correctly
Just look like how I quoted you and replicate next time. Cheers!
