How to avoid KW cannibalization when publishing annual reports

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Michael Martinez: What do you think is being cannibalized? There is no industry-wide agreement on what constitutes "keyword cannibalization". It`s virtually impossible for 1 page on a site to harm another page on a site in the search results.
  
  Some people want only 1 page from a site to appear in SERPs. The search engines don`t care how many appear but that`s a business decision.
  
  Some people feel the wrong pages are chosen and they want the less relevant pages to be pushed down in search SERPs. Those pages aren`t "cannibalizing" anything (in the traditional sense of cannibalizing or reusing something), but they certainly annoy the heck out of folks. And they don`t convert well.
  
  Some sites publish dozens or hundreds of articles about the same topics. That`s impractical and wasteful. It doesn`t hurt a site`s rankings per se but may be indicative of a quality control issue (and you`re certainly not going to get 200 listings in a search result unless there just isn`t anything else for the search engine to show people).
  
  Those are just a few examples of the kinds of things I`ve seen people identify as "cannibalization" across the years. I`ve seen other definitions but there are too many to include them all here.
  
  So if you can provide some clarity on what you`re worried about, I`m sure people can make some recommendations.
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  Ammon Johns: If the issue is that you`d like people to land on newer reports, but many are landing on older ones because they got more links over time, simply ensure that you have a link to "See the latest report" on *all* of the older reports, and that will send the right signal to the search engines, as well as providing an easy and immediate path for those who want the freshest report.
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  Ethan Lazuk: I’d think there’d be overlap for some terms, but that’s natural. Two pages can rank for the same term if they serve different purposes. Cannibalization is more a waste issue. But it sounds like searchers might put the year in the query or the supporting links will cover slightly different topics. In theory, if every page has value and a unique purpose (even if it’s just to present newer data), that should work out. The freshness of the newer report may also give it an advantage over a previous report. If it’s the best source on the topic, it’d likely do better than supporting pages too. If the older reports and pages don’t convert well, even if they drive traffic, it may make business sense to prune a little to prioritize the latest versions.
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  Michael Stricker: I’d concentrate on (internal) linking, CTAs to drive clicks to useful LPs and a great subscription Buyer’s Journey. Like ok at how PubCon handles their past show content to continually build authority and relevance and drive it to this year’s domain.