Keyword cannibalization is the situation where two of your own assets — two apps in the same category, or two pages on the same website — both target the same keyword. The store / search algorithm sees two candidates from the same publisher and splits the ranking signal between them. Neither asset ranks as well as a single consolidated asset would.
Where it shows up
- Multi-app publishers with 3+ apps in the same category (e.g., a publisher with three meditation apps all targeting "meditation app"). The strongest one captures most of the rank; the others bleed traffic that could have flowed to the leader.
- Site-level: a /blog/some-topic page and a /glossary/some-topic page both targeting the same keyword. Google can't decide which to rank, so it ranks neither as well as either could.
- Branded variants: brand-name overlap between your apps (e.g., "App Pro" and "App Lite" both ranking for searches of just "App") — sometimes intentional, sometimes accidental.
How to fix it: three options. (1) Consolidate: kill or redirect the weaker asset. The strongest one consolidates rank and traffic. (2) Differentiate: rewrite the weaker asset to target a related-but-distinct keyword. (3) Designate canonical: keep both, but use internal-linking signals (link consistently from one to the other) to tell the algorithm which to prefer for that keyword.
For ASO specifically: if you publish multiple apps in the same category, choose ONE to be the SEO leader for each major keyword cluster, and ensure the others target adjacent (not overlapping) keyword sets.