Pagination and SEO: How do I fix it during search parameters?
-
Today, I have watched very interesting video on YouTube about Pagination and SEO.
I have implemented pagination with rel="next" and rel="prev" on my paginated page. You can get more idea by visit following pages.
www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas
www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?p=2
www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?p=3
I have added NOINDEX FOLLOW attribute to page 2, page 3 and so on. There is simple question from my side. Can I remove NOINDEX FOLLOW attribute from paginated page or not?
I have big confusion & issues when paginated URLs contain search parameters. You can get more idea by visiting following URLs.
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name&p=2
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name&p=3
What is best suggestion for this kind of pages?
-
Sorry for confusions. By search results I thought you might have been specifically talking about putting keywords into a site search and getting the results page. I've noindexed that page.
What you've said makes sense.
Thanks Peter.
-
Yes, it's the latter instance that I was talking about.
Thanks Peter.
-
Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think of "search results" pretty broadly - and category pages would apply. Each category page is a set of links to products (patio umbrellas, in this case), right? If you're talking about something totally different, please elaborate, because I may be missing something.
-
Thanks Peter.
Just to clarify: I'm not talking about search results pages. I'm talking about paginated category pages. I've honestly had a number of cases where sites have linked to those 2nd or 3rd pages. Weird, I know.
Anyway, it's only a few links so I'm not too concerned about it.
Cheers.
-
Sorry, my answer makes it sounds like link-juice would be completely cut-off, which isn't correct. If you have a NOINDEX,FOLLOW'ed path, some (most?) link-juice will travel down it. So, if there are links to Page 1 of search, and Pages 2-10 are NOINDEX,FOLLOW, then there are product pages, the product pages will get link juice.
I'm not 100% sure, though, what happens with links directly to NOINDEX,FOLLOW pages - I've heard some people suggest that it can disrupt link-juice flow. I suspect that may only be partial, but I've never seen much in the way of data.
-
Hi Alan, that wasn't my understanding of how it worked. I thought the "follow" part in this only permitted the bots to literally follow those links to other pages, and no link juice passes through. Maybe I misunderstood that?
-
As Dr pete stated that this is un-likely, but for arguments sake if you make the pages noindex,follow then the link juice would not be wasted.
-
Practically, I think people worry a bit too much about that, as it's very rare to get links to page 2+ of search results (people link to either the top-level pages or the deep, product pages). Theoretically, though, you're absolutely right.
-
Thanks Peter. One other advantage I can think that the rel=prev/next has: if someone is looking at products on a site and they are on the 2nd or 3rd page, they might decide to link to the page. This will pass the link juice to that page (or collection of pages) whereas if the page was noindexed, it would be a wasted link.
Cheers,
-
I haven't had a lot of problems with NOINDEX, FOLLOW leaking link-juice (in that pages below it ranked), but it's nearly impossible to ever test it both ways and measure which is better. The theoretically advantages of rel=prev/next are:
(1) Less link-juice disruption, as you said.
(2) That Google can choose to rank a different page in the series (like page 3 of results) if that page is more applicable.
I think, honestly, that rel=prev/next was really designed more for paginated articles, which have similar META data but unique content. Paginated search is a bit messier.
-
Thanks Peter. I hadn't seen Google's official advise on this. Having thought about it again, it does make more sense as I think it would be quite messy trying to get the rel next prev tags pointing to the non parameter urls. It's good to know that the canonical tag works in conjunction with these tags to point to the correct url.
I know it's easier to just no index those pages, but doesn't that mean you leak link juice that goes to those pages? Telling Google that they are a part of a series and having all that link juice combined into a single page should mean a more powerful page?
Thanks Peter.
-
Google's official advice is that rel=prev/next should include the additional parameters, but then you should rel-canonical to the non-parameterized URL for that individual page. Setting it up properly, unfortunately, is difficult and I feel that it's too confusing to be adopted by most sites.
You can META NOINDEX pages 2+ and sorts and see how it works, or you can also block parameters in Google Webmaster Tools (or tell them those parameters are for pagination). Unfortunately, the "right" answer often depends on the size of the site and the scope of the problem. In some cases, I've found that the by-the-book approach works fine, and in others we had to throw out Google's book and improvise. I wish I could tell you that there's a one-sized-fits-all answer, but there doesn't seem to be, in my experience.
-
When you say that you're not getting benefits, what do you mean, exactly? If you're not suffering from any particular indexation problems or something like Panda, you probably won't see much difference.
-
Thanks for your valuable reply. I'm waiting for your next blog post on this subject.
Because, I'm not getting enough benefits after implement on my website. I have added my comment on Google's official blog and send my issue to Maile Ohye. Let's see what happen on this issue?
-
I have to admit I have mixed feelings about Google's recent advice, because it's very complex (and they've oversimplified it), and it doesn't work well for all scenarios. If you're using this as prevention and don't have any major problems (like a Panda penalty), then I think rel=prev/next is a good bet here.
As Alan said, you should be able to remove the Meta Robots (NOINDEX), and that's probably sending a mixed signal to the crawlers.
For the sorts and other additional parameters, Google recommends you use rel-canonical to the root page. So, a URL like:
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas?dir=asc&order=name&p=2
...would have the following tags on it...
In other words, canonicalize to page 2 (with no additional parameters) but then rel=prev/next should reflect the sorts and other parameters of the current URL.
This is the main problem I have with the approach - it's extremely complicated.
Meta Robots (NOINDEX) is very effective for keeping the search pages out of the index and avoiding duplication problems, and it's much easier to implement. The advantage of rel=prev/next is that your other pages (2, 3, etc.) could potentially rank if they're a better fit. For internal search, like product search, I find that's almost never a big issue. It's much more important for article pagination (Google doesn't make this distinction very well in any of their recent statements).
Also, as Alan said, it's approved to just canonical to a "View All" version, if you have one and it's linked/available for users. That can create a huge page, though, so you have to take usability and load times into account.
Sorry, it's very complex - I need to do a write-up on this, as I'm frustrated with Google on the subject. Honestly, I still tell some folks to use NOINDEX, because it's just simpler and it's very effective and preventing duplication problems. Rel=prev/next is more subtle, but it does seem to work, if you can implement it properly.
-
I have to say i dont know.
i think in that case you should use the view all senario
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html -
Good to know! And what case will happen If paginated pages will contain additional parameters which are explained by me in example?
-
no, it works like a canonical tag, all 3 pages will be seen as one big page, under the url and title of page 1
-
Here, I have big confusion. Page 2, Page 3 and so on have similar page title and meta description which is available on Page 1.
Will Google show me error about duplicate page title and meta description after remove NOINDEX FOLLOW?
-
Yes remove the noindex follow.
all the content on all the pagneated pages will be awarded to one page, usellly page 1. but if you have a no index, then only the content on page one will be used to rank you.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Display ads and SEO
I have a section(no. of webpages with content) on my site with display ads. The site is mainly for UK visitors. I want to show ads to UK visitors but not US visitors. Rest of the content will be the same for UK and US. There will just be 1 page with same UrL for US and UK. Hence, no href lang tags are being used.
Technical SEO | | Kohliharleen
Is there any correlation between display ads and SEO? Would not showing ads in US cause any issues for bots or do bots consider display ads and SEO as two completey different aspects. Asking as Google bot crawls from the US.1 -
Set Canonical for Paginated Content
Hi Guys, This is a follow up on this thread: http://moz.com/community/q/dynamic-url-parameters-woocommerce-create-404-errors# I would like to know how I can set a canonical link in Wordpress/Woocommerce which points to "View All" on category pages on our webshop.
Technical SEO | | jeeyer
The categories on my website can be viewed as 24/48 or All products but because the quanity constantly changes viewing 24 or 48 products isn't always possible. To point Google in the right direction I want to let them know that "View All" is the best way to go.
I've read that Google's crawler tries to do this automatically but not sure if this is the case on on my website. Here is some more info on the issue: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en
Thanks for the help! Joost0 -
Trailing Slashes and SEO
Hi, We're currently using a third party blog platform (Blog Engine) on our site and we have a trailing slash issue. I can add as many trailing slashes as I want to the blog's homepage URL, but they don't redirect and our dev guys say this cannot be done with Blog Engine. We're in the process of building our own blog but, in the meantime, I just wanted to know if this will cause an issue? Individual blog posts with trailing slashes are redirected, it's just the homepage where it can't be done. I haven't noticed any traffic going to a blog URL with trailing slashes, and I don't believe any URLs with trailing slashes are being indexed, so should this be OK? Cheers, Lewis
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Redirection Impact on SEO
Need help urgently. There is the situation [This is how is it working now]: 1. Have a global landing page [say when user types in www.mysite.com - takes user to the global landing page: [www.mysite.com/global/en.html]](http://www.mysite.com/global/en.html] ) 2. Users from this landing page can select a country on his/her choice and get redirected say: [www.mysite.com/us/en.html] Would like to change the functionality as below: 1. When user types in www.mysite.com 1a. Would find the location of the request based on GEO IP and if the request is coming from North America region then would redirect the users to: www.mysite.com/us/en.html 1b. If the request is from any other location/region then it would continue to work as it is currently working: take the user to the global landing page: www.mysite.com/global/en.html Would this change have any negative impact or not found by search engines from SEO perspective? If it does then what are the impacts and if does not then why not. If it does then what is the best possible way to address this request. Appriciate your help. Thanks, Koushik Roy
Technical SEO | | KoushikRoy0 -
Google Search memory
Hi we have had the following statement from a member of our Japan office with regards google displaying search results, would anyone be able to give us a definitive answer on this. Google remembers previous non-mobile related searches For example, we already know that we come up on the first page if you select “kaigai keitai” (mobile phone for use abroad) and “UK” where as we don’t for searches where you replace the UK with the US or other countries. This means that if a customer, for example, does a search just on the UK e.g. using words like UK travel, London, millennium dome, etc. and then does a separate search just using the words “kaigai keitai” that google could show us as a link on the first page. However, if an individual did a search on Paris, France, Eiffel Tower, and then did a search for “kaigai keitai”, our link might not appear on the page. I don’t know if we have tested this already, but Google seems to have a very long “memory” and I could see this kind of aspect of Google resulting in us missing significant business from people going to the US, France, Italy, etc. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | -Al-0 -
Google Search Parameters
Couple quick questions. Is using the parameter pws=0 still useful for turning off personalization? Is there a way to set my location as a URL parameter as well? For instance, I want to set my location to United States, can this be done with a URL param the same way as pws=0?
Technical SEO | | nbyloff0 -
Need advanced SEO help!
Hi guys, This is my last attempt to work out what is up with this site before it goes to the big Flipper in the sky (and even then I doubt it will make much more than £1!) This site was a successful site, then one day Google decided it didnt like it, and I have not had much joy with it for nearly a year now. I must admit I tried to forget about it for a while, but it has always been a thorn in my side due to the fact it used to be a nice little earner. I have SEOmoz crawled it and I cant find any issues that would cause such a severe penalty, I removed many of the affiliate links, clocked the rest of the affiliate links and tried numurous other ideas, but now, as a last ditch attempt I am looking for some help! I tried to avoid the typical thin affiliate site by adding relevant content, but I have seen sites with much poorer design and content rank higher than this one. Any ideas welcome! Thanks in advance My site
Technical SEO | | mozUser14692366292850 -
SEO Friendly Calendar System
Does anyone have a recommendation for a calendar system that is SEO friendly? I have been using Helios Calendar but the current version lacks proper SEO bones (canonical URLs, mini calendar generates links to empty events from 1950 to 2020, 302 re-directs, and it is generating thousands of crawl errors in Google Webmaster Tools. The developer has plans to implement some fixes, and I would rather not rip apart what is currently there to fix core issues. I have found that calendars in general are a nightmare. If anyone has any suggestions, or has experience in tidying up Helios I would be interested. Thanks, Dan
Technical SEO | | DanLaBate0