Rel=prev/next and canonical tags on paginated pages?
-
Hi there,
I'm using rel="prev" and rel="next" on paginated category pages. On 1st page I'm also setting a canonical tag, since that page happens to get hits to an URL with parameters.
The site also uses mobile version of pages on a subdomain.
Here's what markup the 1st desktop page has:
Here's what markup the 2nd desktop page has:
Here's what markup the 1st MOBILE page has:
Here's what markup the 2nd MOBILE page has:
Questions:
1. On desktop pages starting from page 2 to page X, if these pages get traffic to their versions with parameters, will I'll have duplicate issues or the canonical tag on 1st page makes me safe?
2. Should I use canonical tags on mobile pages starting from page 2 to page X?
Are there any better solutions of avoiding duplicate content issues?
-
Yes, which is why I thought the first page might be a bit more helpful as a reference point.
-
Yes, but having a "view all" page is not possible. It will be too big to generate it, cache it and display it...
-
Okay, technically you should have a "view all" page and canonical to that which is what that is referring to, as you've got so many pages it is still possible to do that but may suffer from load times etc. So if you were to do it by the book you would ahve the rel=prev/next etc. and a view all button which lists all the content you would then canonical to that.
-
There's another link: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html
It says:
In cases of paginated content, we recommend either a rel=canonical from component pages to a single-page version of the article, or to use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” pagination markup. If rel=canonical to a view-all page isn’t designated, paginated content can use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” markup.
That's why i'm confused which way to go with...
-
It shouldn't matter how many pages though it might be beneficial to categorize them or similar to help users but you can canonical the first page or you can canonical a page that's the same or very similar.
There are many helpful facts on the link above.
-
Thanks for your answer, but I didn't say that this is for a few pages. What if there are 100k pages like these?
If I put both rel="prev"/rel="next" and canonical tags on them all. Will it be fine? What URLs do I put inside of canonical tags on pages other than the 1st page of the pagination?
-
First off you might find this page handy - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
Canonical and pagination are the same (sort of) so you don't need both.
Canonical is when you've got a few pages that are the same and you're telling Google these are all the same but here is the original.
Pagination is telling Google these pages are all the same but they are in a sequence here is the first and here is the last page
Now there is no harm having both on a page especially if you've got some parameters, You should be safe plus duplicate content is not the worst thing to face and it's not going to cause that much harm if you've got a couple of pages duplicated.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Are there any downsides to using a canonical tag temporarily?
I'm working on redesigning our website. One of the content types has a main archive page (/success-stories) containing all of the success stories (written by graduates of our program). Because we plan to have success stories for other people (non-graduates), I'm using category hierarchies (/success-stories/graduates and success-stories/nonprofits, for example). It will go one level deeper to organize graduates by graduation year (/success-stories/graduates/%year%). I think this will work out well. However, we won't have non-graduate success stories for a little while, probably at least a few weeks, which means that /success-stories and /.../graduates indices will contain the same content for a while. So my question is this: Will it hurt to use a canonical tag that points to /success-stories/graduates as the authority until the main archive page contains more than just graduates? Or would it be better to use a 302 redirect from /success-stories to /.../graduates until more diverse content is added?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bcaples0 -
Pagination & Canonicals
Hi I've been looking at how we paginate our product pages & have a quick question on canonicals. Is this the right way to display.. Or should the canonical point to the main page http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/euro-containers-stacking-containers, so Google doesn't pick up duplicate meta information? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Links / Top Pages by Page Authority ==> pages shouldnt be there
I checked my site links and top pages by page authority. What i have found i dont understand, because the first 5-10 pages did not exist!! Should know that we launched a new site and rebuilt the static pages so there are a lot of new pages, and of course we deleted some old ones. I refreshed the sitemap.xml (these pages are not in there) and upload it in GWT. Why those old pages appear under the links menu at top pages by page authority?? How can i get rid off them? thx, Endre
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Neckermann0 -
Pagination on a product page with reviews spread out on multiple pages
Our current product pages markup only have the canonical URL on the first page (each page loads more user reviews). Since we don't want to increase load times, we don't currently have a canonical view all product page. Do we need to mark up each subsequent page with its own canonical URL? My understanding was that canonical and rel next prev tags are independent of each other. So that if we mark up the middle pages with a paginated URL, e.g: Product page #1http://www.example.co.uk/Product.aspx?p=2692"/>http://www.example.co.uk/Product.aspx?p=2692&pageid=2" />**Product page #2 **http://www.example.co.uk/Product.aspx?p=2692&pageid=2"/>http://www.example.co.uk/Product.aspx?p=2692" />http://www.example.co.uk/Product.aspx?p=2692&pageid=3" />Would mean that each canonical page would suggest to google another piece of unique content, which this obviously isn't. Is the PREV NEXT able to "override" the canonical and explain to Googlebot that its part of a series? Wouldn't the canonical then be redundant?Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Don340 -
Is a Rel Canonical Sufficient or Should I 'NoIndex'
Hey everyone, I know there is literature about this, but I'm always frustrated by technical questions and prefer a direct answer or opinion. Right now, we've got recanonicals set up to deal with parameters caused by filters on our ticketing site. An example is that this: http://www.charged.fm/billy-joel-tickets?location=il&time=day relcanonicals to... http://www.charged.fm/billy-joel-tickets My question is if this is good enough to deal with the duplicate content, or if it should be de-indexed. Assuming so, is the best way to do this by using the Robots.txt? Or do you have to individually 'noindex' these pages? This site has 650k indexed pages and I'm thinking that the majority of these are caused by url parameters, and while they're all canonicaled to the proper place, I am thinking that it would be best to have these de-indexed to clean things up a bit. Thanks for any input.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | keL.A.xT.o0 -
Canonical tag + HREFLANG vs NOINDEX: Redundant?
Hi, We launched our new site back in Sept 2013 and to control indexation and traffic, etc we only allowed the search engines to index single dimension pages such as just category, brand or collection but never both like category + brand, brand + collection or collection + catergory We are now opening indexing to double faceted page like category + brand and the new tag structure would be: For any other facet we're including a "noindex, follow" meta tag. 1. My question is if we're including a "noindex, follow" tag to select pages do we need to include a canonical or hreflang tag afterall? Should we include it either way for when we want to remove the "noindex"? 2. Is the x-default redundant? Thanks for any input. Cheers WMCA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WMCA0 -
Canonical URL Tag Usage
Hi there, I have a .co.uk website and a .ie website, which have the exact same content on both, should I put a canonical tag on both websites, on every page? Kind Regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
Use of the Canonical Tag, Both Internally and Cross Domain
I've seen the cross domain canonical not work at all in my test cases. And an interesting point was brought to my attention today. That point was that in order for the canonical tag to work, the page that you are referencing needs to have the exact same content. And that this was the whole point of the canonical tag, not for it to be used as a 301 but for it to consolidate pages with the same content. I want to know if this is true. Does the page you reference with a canonical tag have to have the same exact content? And what have been your experiences with using the canonical tag referencing another page on a different domain that has the same exact subject matter but not the exact duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GearyLSF372