Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Rel="prev" / "next"

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Rel="prev" / "next"

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    6
    1415
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • AdenaSEO
      AdenaSEO last edited by

      Hi guys,

      The tech department implemented rel="prev"  and rel="next" on this website a long time ago.
      We also added a canonical tag to the 'own' page.

      We're talking about the following situation:

      https://bit.ly/2H3HpRD

      However we still see a situation where a lot of paginated pages are visible in the SERP.
      Is this just a case of rel="prev" and "next" being directives to Google?
      And in this specific case, Google deciding to not only show the 1st page in the SERP, but still show most of the paginated pages in the SERP?

      Please let me know, what you think.

      Regards,
      Tom

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • NickSamuel
        NickSamuel last edited by

        Interesting development which may be of interest to you Ernst:

        Google admitted just the other day that they "haven't supported rel=next/prev for years." https://searchengineland.com/google-apologizes-for-relnext-prev-mixup-314494

        "Should you remove the markup? Probably not. Google has communicated this morning in a video hangout that while it may not use rel=next/prev for search, it can still be used by other search engines and by browsers, among other reasons. So while Google may not use it for search indexing, rel=prev/next can still be useful for users. Specifically some browsers might use those annotations for things like prefetching and accessibility purposes."

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • HashtagJeff
          HashtagJeff @effectdigital last edited by

          I was looking into this today and happened across this line in Google's Search Console Help documents:

          rel="next" and rel="prev" are compatible with rel="canonical" values. You can include both declarations in the same page. For example, a page can contain both of the following HTML tags:

          Here's the link to the doc - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en

          But I wouldn't be using a canonical to somewhere else and the rel="next" directives.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • effectdigital
            effectdigital @HashtagJeff last edited by

            I had never actually considered that. My thought is, no. I'd literally just leave canonicals entirely off ambiguous URLs like that. Have seen a lot of instances lately where over-zealous sculpting has led to loss of traffic. In the instance of this exact comment / reply, it's just my hunch here. I'd just remove the tag entirely. There's always risk in adding layers of unrequired complexity, even if it's not immediately obvious

            HashtagJeff 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • HashtagJeff
              HashtagJeff @effectdigital last edited by

              I'm going to second what @effectdigital is outlining here. Google does what they want, and sometimes they index paginated pages on your site. If you have things setup properly and you are still seeing paginated pages when you do a site: search in Google then you likely need to strengthen your content elsewhere because Google still sees these paginated URLs as authoritative for your domain.

              I have a question for you @effectdigital - Do you still self-canonical with rel= prev / next? I mean, I knew that you wouldn't want to canonical to another URL, but I hadn't really thought about the self-canonical until I read something you said above. Hadn't really thought about that one haha.

              Thanks!

              effectdigital 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • effectdigital
                effectdigital last edited by

                Both are directives to google. All of the "rel=" links are directives, including hreflang, alternate/mobile, AMP, prev/next

                It's not really necessary to use a canonical tag in addition to any of the other "rel=" family links

                A canonical tag says to Google: "I am not the real version of this page, I am non-canonical. For the canonical version of the page, please follow this canonical tag. Don't index me at all, index the canonical destination URL"

                The pagination based prev/next links say to Google: "I am the main version of this page, or one of the other paginated URLs. Did you know, if you follow this link - you can find and index more pages of content if you want to"

                So the problem you create by using both, is creating the following dialogue to Google:

                1.) "Hey Google. Follow this link to index paginated URLs if they happen to have useful content on"

                *Google goes to paginated URL

                2.) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE Google!? I am not canonical, go back where you came from #buildawall"

                *Google goes backwards to non-paginated URL

                3.) "Hey Google. Follow this link to index paginated URLs if they happen to have useful content on"

                *Google goes to paginated URL

                4.) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE Google!? I am not canonical, go back where you came from"

                *Google goes backwards to non-paginated URL

                ... etc.

                As you can see, it's confusing to tell Google to crawl and index URLs with one tag, then tell them not to with another. All your indexation factors (canonical tags, other rel links, robots tags, HTTP header X-Robots, sitemap, robots.txt files) should tell the SAME, logical story (not different stories, which contradict each other directly)

                If you point to a web page via any indexation method (rel links, sitemap links) then don't turn around and say, actually no I've changed my mind I don't want this page indexed (by 'canonicalling' that URL elsewhere). If you didn't want a page to be indexed, then don't even point to it via other indexation methods

                A) If you do want those URLs to be indexed by Google:

                1) Keep in mind that by using rel prev/next, Google will know they are pagination URLs and won't weight them very strongly. If however, Google decides that some paginated content is very useful - it may decide to rank such URLs

                2) If you want this, remove the canonical tags and leave rel=prev/next deployment as-is

                B) If you don't want those URLs to be indexed by Google:

                1) This is only a directive, Google can disregard it but it will be much more effective as you won't be contradicting yourself

                2) Remove the rel= prev / next stuff completely from paginated URLs. Leave the canonical tag in place and also add a Meta no-index tag to paginated URLs

                Keep in mind that, just because you block Google from indexing the paginated URLs, it doesn't necessarily mean that the non-paginated URLs will rank in the same place (with the same power) as the paginated URLs (which will be, mostly lost from the rankings). You may get lucky in that area, you may not (depending upon the content similarity of both URLs, depending whether or not Google's perceived reason to rank that URL - hinged strongly on a piece of content that exists only in the paginated URL variant)

                My advice? Don't be a control freak and use option (B). Instead use option (A). Free traffic is free traffic, don't turn your nose up at it

                HashtagJeff 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Alexanders

                  Does anyone know how to fix this structured data error on search console? Invalid value in field "itemtype"

                  I'm getting the same structured data error on search console form most of my websites, Invalid value in field "itemtype" I take off all the structured data but still having this problem, according to Search console is a syntax problem but I can't find what is causing this. Any guess, suggestion or solution for this?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alexanders
                  0
                • mothner

                  Are HTML Sitemaps Still Effective With "Noindex, Follow"?

                  A site we're working on has hundreds of thousands of inventory pages that are generally "orphaned" pages. To reach them, you need to do a lot of faceting on the search results page. They appear in our XML sitemaps as well, but I'd still consider these orphan pages. To assist with crawling and indexation, we'd like to create HTML sitemaps to link to these pages. Due to the nature (and categorization) of these products, this would mean we'll be creating thousands of individual HTML sitemap pages, which we're hesitant to put into the index. Would the sitemaps still be effective if we add a noindex, follow meta tag? Does this indicate lower quality content in some way, or will it make no difference in how search engines will handle the links therein?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mothner
                  0
                • vivekrathore

                  "Null" appearing as top keyword in "Content Keywords" under Google index in Google Search Console

                  Hi, "Null" is appearing as top keyword in Google search console > Google Index > Content Keywords for our site http://goo.gl/cKaQ4K . We do not use "null" as keyword on site. We are not able to find why Google is treating "null" as a keyword for our site. Is anyone facing such issue. Thanks & Regards

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore
                  0
                • Modbargains

                  Dilemma about "images" folder in robots.txt

                  Hi, Hope you're doing well. I am sure, you guys must be aware that Google has updated their webmaster technical guidelines saying that users should allow access to their css files and java-scripts file if it's possible. Used to be that Google would render the web pages only text based. Now it claims that it can read the css and java-scripts. According to their own terms, not allowing access to the css files can result in sub-optimal rankings. "Disallowing crawling of Javascript or CSS files in your site’s robots.txt directly harms how well our algorithms render and index your content and can result in suboptimal rankings."http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/10/updating-our-technical-webmaster.htmlWe have allowed access to our CSS files. and Google bot, is seeing our webapges more like a normal user would do. (tested it in GWT)Anyhow, this is my dilemma. I am sure lot of other users might be facing the same situation. Like any other e commerce companies/websites.. we have lot of images. Used to be that our css files were inside our images folder, so I have allowed access to that. Here's the robots.txt --> http://www.modbargains.com/robots.txtRight now we are blocking images folder, as it is very huge, very heavy, and some of the images are very high res. The reason we are blocking that is because we feel that Google bot might spend almost all of its time trying to crawl that "images" folder only, that it might not have enough time to crawl other important pages. Not to mention, a very heavy server load on Google's and ours. we do have good high quality original pictures. We feel that we are losing potential rankings since we are blocking images. I was thinking to allow ONLY google-image bot, access to it. But I still feel that google might spend lot of time doing that. **I was wondering if Google makes a decision saying, hey let me spend 10 minutes for google image bot, and let me spend 20 minutes for google-mobile bot etc.. or something like that.. , or does it have separate "time spending" allocations for all of it's bot types. I want to unblock the images folder, for now only the google image bot, but at the same time, I fear that it might drastically hamper indexing of our important pages, as I mentioned before, because of having tons & tons of images, and Google spending enough time already just to crawl that folder.**Any advice? recommendations? suggestions? technical guidance? Plan of action? Pretty sure I answered my own question, but I need a confirmation from an Expert, if I am right, saying that allow only Google image access to my images folder. Sincerely,Shaleen Shah

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modbargains
                  1
                • AlliedComputer

                  Rel="canonical" and rel="alternate" both necessary?

                  We are fighting some duplicate content issues across multiple domains. We have a few magento stores that have different country codes. For example: domain.com and domain.ca, domain.com is the "main" domain. We have set up different rel="alternative codes like: The question is, do we need to add custom rel="canonical" tags to domain.ca that points to domain.com? For example for domain.ca/product.html to point to: Also how far does rel="canonical" follow?  For example if we have:
                  domain.ca/sub/product.html canonical to domain.com/sub/product.html
                  then,
                  domain.com/sub/product.html canonical to domain.com/product.html

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlliedComputer
                  0
                • Kadel

                  Pipe ("|") in my website's title is being replaced with ":" in Google results

                  Hi , One of the websites I'm promoting and working on is www.pau-brasil.co.il.
                  It's wordpress-based website and as you can see the html's Title is "PauBrasil | some hebrew slogan".
                  (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/2f80EEY.gif)
                  When I'm searching for "PauBrasil" (Which is the brand's name) , one of the results google shows is "PauBrasil: Some Hebrew Slogan" (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/eJxNHrO.gif ) Why does the pipe is being replaced with ":" ?
                  And not just that , as you can see there's a "blank space" missing between the the ":" to the slogan.
                  (note: the websites has been indexed by google crawler at least 4 times so I find it hard to believe it can be the reason) I've keep on looking and found out that there's another page in that website with the exact same title
                  but when I'm looking for it in google , it shows the title as it really is , with pipe. ("|").
                  (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/dtsbZV2.gif) Have you ever encountered something like that?
                  Can it be that the duplicated title cause that weird "replacement"? Thanks in advance,
                  Kadel

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kadel
                  0
                • mj775

                  Canonical VS Rel=Next & Rel=Prev for Paginated Pages

                  I run an ecommerce site that paginates product pages within Categories/Sub-Categories. Currently, products are not displayed in multiple categories but this will most likely happen as time goes on (in Clearance and Manufacturer Categories). I am unclear as to the proper implementation of Canonical tags and Rel=Next & Rel=Prev tags on paginated pages. I do not have a View All page to use as the Canonical URL so that is not an option. I want to avoid duplicate content issues down the road when products are displayed in multiple categories of the site and have Search Engines index paginated pages. My question is, should I use the Rel=Next & Rel=Prev tags on paginated pages as well as using Page One as the Canonical URL? Also, should I implement the Canonical tag on pages that are not yet paginated (only one page)?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mj775
                  0
                • mudbugmedia

                  Schema.org Implementation: "Physician" vs. "Person"

                  Hey all, I'm looking to implement Schema tagging for a local business and am unsure of whether to use "Physician" or "Person" for a handful of doctors. Though "Physician" seems like it should be the obvious answer, Schema.org states that it should refer to "A doctor's office" instead of a physician. The properties used in "Physician" seem to apply to a physician's practice, and not an actual physician. Properties are sourced from the "Thing", "Place", "Organization", and "LocalBusiness" schemas, so I'm wondering if "Person" might be a more appropriate implementation since it allows for more detail (affiliations, awards, colleagues, jobTitle, memberOf), but I wanna make sure I get this right. Also, I'm wondering if the "Physician" schema allows for properties pulled from the "Person" schema, which I think would solve everything. For reference: http://schema.org/Person http://schema.org/Physician Thanks, everyone! Let me know how off-base my strategy is, and how I might be able to tidy it up.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mudbugmedia
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.