Rel=cannonical vs. noindex.follow for paginated pages
-
I"m working on a real estate site that has multiple listing pages, e.g. http://www.hhcrealestate.com/manhattan-beach-mls-real-estate-listings
I'm trying to get the main result page to rank for that particular geo-keyword, i.e. "manhattan beach homes for sale". I want to make sure all of the individual listings on the paginated pages, 2,3, 4 etc. still get indexed.
Is it better to add
to all of the paginated pages, i.e.manhattan-beach-mls-real-estate-listings-2, manhattan-beach-mls-real-estate-listings--3, manhattan-beach-mls-real-estate-listings-4, etc. or is it better to add noindex,follow to those pages?
-
I actually find NOINDEX, FOLLOW a bit easier to implement and very effective in most cases. If you use rel-canonical, Google would prefer that you canonical to a "View All" version of the page (not to page 1 of search results). Practically, though, either will work.
I've also had decent luck with rel=prev/next, although implementation is very tricky. One other problem is that Bing doesn't honor it.
This subject can get very tricky, and no one (even Google's own reps) seem to have the one "right" answer. I find, in practice, that it depends a lot on the site and scope. Adam Audette has an article that shows just how complex pagination can get:
http://searchengineland.com/five-step-strategy-for-solving-seo-pagination-problems-95494
-
I did look into that and my issue is the pages are dynamic. In order to implement it we'd have to create a script to create the correct tag sequence on the fly. Since the pages already load relatively slowly with all of the images I'd prefer a static solution so it doesn't cause the pages to load any slower. Do you have any experience with implementing the rel=prevandnext? Did the script cause any delays? Thanks
-
Agree with Dean on this one. Using rel prev and next is a more direct approach. A good answer for him!
-
My choice with be a rel canonical, however have you considered using rel prev and next?
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
-
Google has deindexed a page it thinks is set to 'noindex', but is in fact still set to 'index'
A page on our WordPress powered website has had an error message thrown up in GSC to say it is included in the sitemap but set to 'noindex'. The page has also been removed from Google's search results. Page is https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/bad-credit-mortgages/how-to-get-a-mortgage-with-bad-credit/ Looking at the page code, plus using Screaming Frog and Ahrefs crawlers, the page is very clearly still set to 'index'. The SEO plugin we use has not been changed to 'noindex' the page. I have asked for it to be reindexed via GSC but I'm concerned why Google thinks this page was asked to be noindexed. Can anyone help with this one? Has anyone seen this before, been hit with this recently, got any advice...?
Technical SEO | | d.bird0 -
Noindex PPC landing pages or optimise for SEO?
Organic seems to be down YoY on one of the categories of a large ecommerce website that I work on. This particular category has multiple landing pages set up for PPC consisting of filtered products. So these landing pages are prone to duplicate content due to the products listed. e.g. Blue Thingamajigs White Thingamajigs Black Thingamajigs High Gloss Thingamajigs Oak Thingamajigs Glass Thingamajigs etc These landing pages do well for PPC, but are nowhere to be seen in organic (51+). The main category page however ranks quite well for quite a variety of root and longtail keywords, though not as well as it used to. For example, it does rank for "thingamajigs", "white thingamajigs", "white gloss thingamajigs" and "white gloss thingamajigs with cherries on top". Would it benefit the main category page if the PPC landing pages were noindexed? Or, despite Google's preference for the main category, work on further optimising the landing pages for SEO? Or is there another solution that I'm completely overlooking? (It is a Friday afternoon after all...)
Technical SEO | | Ria_0 -
Big page of clients - links to individual client pages with light content - not sure if canonical or no-follow - HELP
Not sure what best practice here is: http://www.5wpr.com/clients/ Is this is a situation where I'm best off adding canonical tags back to the main clients page, or to the practice area each client falls under? No-following all these links and adding canonical? No-follow/No-index all client pages? need some advice here...
Technical SEO | | simplycary0 -
Pros and Cons of Rel Author on Product Pages
I've heard that having rel=author enabled on your pages can be great for increasing click through rate but you should not use it on every page on your site. What are the pros and cons of using rel=author on product pages? Do you use rel=author on your product pages or just on your blog articles?
Technical SEO | | Charlessipe1 -
Have a client that migrated their site; went live with noindex/nofollow and for last two SEOMoz crawls only getting one page crawled. In contrast, G.A. is crawling all pages. Just wait?
Client site is 15 + pages. New site had noindex/nofollow removed prior to last two crawls.
Technical SEO | | alankoen1230 -
Secondary Pages Indexed over Primary Page
I have 4 pages for a single product Each of the pages link to the Main page for that product Google is indexing the secondary pages above my preferred landing page How do I fix this?
Technical SEO | | Bucky0 -
On page audit throws a rel="canonical" curve ball :-(
Good Morning from -3 Degrees C, still no paths gritted wetherby UK 😞 Following an on page audit one recommendation instructs me to ad:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://www.barrettsteel.com/" /> on the home page of barrett steel. I'm confused, i thought i only had to add this to duplications
the home page which to my knowledge dont exist. So my question is please: "Why shoul i ad this snippet of code on the home page of http://www.barrettsteel.com http://www.barrettsteel.com/" /> Any insights welcome 🙂0 -
Ranking above PLACE PAGES
What does it take for results to show up above Place Page results. It seems like Google Local gets a lot of emphasis . Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | musillawfirm0