Should I implement pagination(rel=next, rel=prev) if I have duplicate meta tags?
-
Hi,
I just want to ask if it is necessary to implement pagination(rel=next, rel=prev) to my category pages because Google webmaster tools is telling me that these pages are having similar meta title and meta description. Ex.
page1: http://www.site.com/iphone-resellers/1
meta title:Search for iphone resellers in US
page2:http://www.site.com/iphone-resellers/2
meta title:Search for iphone resellers in US
page3:http://www.site.com/iphone-resellers/3
meta title:Search for iphone resellers in US
Thanks in advance.
-
I agree with you one hundred percent Dr Pete. Thanks for your detailed insight. Always helps
-
This is a constantly changing area of SEO the past couple of years, but my general feeling is that the rel=next/prev tags are working pretty well. They're low risk, and it can help you reduce duplication in Google's eyes without de-indexing the pages (page 3 could still rank, for example).
The biggest downside of the tags is that they're a bit tricky to implement, especially if you have search filters and sorts (in which case the proper tags get pretty complicated fast). Another option (as Nakul mentioned) is to NOINDEX pages 2+, which is simpler but would knock those extra pages out of ranking contention. That's a route I'd go only if you seemed to be getting hit hard for thin content.
The only area where I'll disagree slightly with Nakul is that handling pagination for SEO isn't always one of those areas where usability considerations help much. From a core architecture and internal search perspective, give your users a good experience, absolutely. From the standpoint of how to index those search pages, though, it's almost all about how Google views near-duplicate content. This is an area of SEO that is getting more technical and really comes down to the quirks of how Google indexes content.
-
Hi Nakul,
I don't have a view-all page. Both suggestions are great but they have disadvantages, based on what I read in Google, and it would really depend on what's the purpose. And a big YES, that's what I am thinking since user experience is more important.
Thanks a lot!
-
I see you have 2 responses from SWD and SanketPatel. They are both different strategies and you need to decide what you want to do as a Business. Here's why:
If you adopt SWD's solution, you could technically get rid of the problem, by telling Google that do not index page 2, page 3 and so on and just index your page 1. My question would be, do you have a View All page ? Do you want search engines to index and rank each one of your paginated pages ? Do they have unique collection of products and does it help the user if they land directly on Page 2 or would you rather then have land on Page 1 always ?
SanketPatel's solution definitely gets rid of the problem from a GWT perspective, however, the bigger question is, what you are trying to achieve and what your users would prefer.
Instead of looking it it from what's right in GWT or SEO, find what's right for your user first and then implement that in an SEO Friendly way.
I hope that helps and makes sense.
-
Its not necessary but its advisable if you implement it, to get out of duplication errors. If you don't want to do that then you can change title on page 2 like "Search for iphone resellers in US - Page 2". Same as you can implement for 3rd, 4th... page
-
I think it would be better for you if implement pagination and canonical url of ../1, ../2, ../3 as http://www.site.com/iphone-resellers. Google always prefer a good herarchy in every website.
I hope it can help 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
-
Duplicate Content Due to Pagination
Recently our newly designed website has been suffering from a rankings loss. While I am sure there are a number of factors involved, I'd like to no if this scenario could be harmful... Google is showing a number of duplicate content issues within Webmaster Tools. Some of what I am seeing is duplicate Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions for page 1 and page 2 of some of my product category pages. So if a category has many products and has 4 pages, it is effectively showing the same page title and meta desc. across all 4 pages. I am wondering if I should let my site show, say 150 products per page to get them all on one page instead of the current 36 per page. I use the Big Commerce platform. Thank you for taking the time to read my question!
Technical SEO | | josh3300 -
Meta title Tag dilemma.... need help
Hey, Guys I have a dilemma that I cannot figure out how to solve. One thing that I have learned is that the meta tag is probably one of the most important factors of SEO. I work in the industry of real estate and we are located in a mid-sized market, Augusta, GA, which does not have a hugely competitive digital marketplace. So, I have told my web developer the changes that I want her to make to our major sub-domain pages on our website. I am anticipating that once she makes these changes which will allow me to make the necessary SEO changes to website, that we will see some good results. I have one dilemma that I can't figure out how to solve with the meta title tag. Check out our rental section: http://aubenrealty.com/rentals.cfm Now, click on any rental property and it will take you to that rental's page. Notice the page title " Auben Realty- real estate....." This is identical for every active and non-active property on our website. Every time we create a new property, this is what it spits out. Now, take it a step further and click on " Contact me about this property," and you will see the same page title. My dilemma is, " How do we fix this?" My assumption is that the best page title would be the address for each property( ex, 1322 Laurel Street, Augusta Ga 30904), right ? Is this some kind of simple coding adjustment?
Technical SEO | | AubbiefromAubenRealty0 -
How can we fix duplicate title tags like these being reported in GWT?
Hi all, I posted this in the GWT Forum on Monday and still no answers so I will try here. Our URL is http://www.ccisolutions.com
Technical SEO | | danatanseo
We have over 200 pages on our site being flagged by GWT as having
duplicate title tags. The majority of them look similar to this: Title: <a>JBL EON MusicMix 16 | Mixer | CCI Solutions</a> GWT is reporting these URLs to have all the same title: /StoreFront/product/R-JBL-MUSICMIX.prod/StoreFront/product/R-JBL-MUSICMIX.prod?Origin=Category/StoreFront/product/R-JBL-MUSICMIX.prod?Origin=Footer/StoreFront/product/R-JBL-MUSICMIX.prod?Origin=Header/StoreFront/product/R-JBL-MUSICMIX.prod?origin=../StoreFront/product/R-JBL-MUSICMIX.prod?origin=GoogleBase These are all the same page. There was a time when we used these origin codes, but we stopped using them over a year ago. We also added canonical tags to every page to prevent us from having duplicate content issues. However, these origin codes are
still showing up in GWT. Is there anything we can do to fix this problem. Do we have a technical issue with our site code and the way Google is seeing our dynamic URLs? Any suggestions on how we can fix this problem? The same is true in our report for Meta descriptions. Thanks
you,
Dana Tan0 -
H1 Tag.
As far as I know to rank well H1 tag should be present in all pages and it should be one of the first things in the page, it also should include the keywords. I was checking my site and magento generates the H1 with an image, www.theprinterdepo.com I dont know if this is wise? class="logo">The Printer Depo<a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>http://www.theprinterdepo.com/" title="The Printer Depo" class="logo">width="377px" src="https://www.theprinterdepo.com/skin/frontend/default/MAG060062/images/logo.gif" alt="The Printer Depo" />
Technical SEO | | levalencia10 -
Rel=canonical issue
Re. http://www.appetise.com. We have been alerted that we are "not making appropriate use of the rel=canonical tag". Please could someone just clarify this for us and let us know the recommended remedial action we need to take to rectify the issue? Many Thanks, RB
Technical SEO | | E-resistible0 -
Title Tag Wordpress
I need to know how can I personalize the title tag individually in my categories?
Technical SEO | | nafera20 -
Duplicate Page Title
First i had a problem with duplicate title errors, almost every page i had was double because my website linked to both www.funky-lama.com and funky-lama.com I changed this by adding a code to htaccess to redirect everything to www.funky-lama.com, but now my website was crawled again and the errors were actually doubled. all my pages now have duplicate title errors cause of pages like this www.funky-lama.com/160-confetti-gitaar.html funky-lama.com/160-confetti-gitaar.html www.funky-lama.com/1_present-time funky-lama.com/1_present-time
Technical SEO | | funkylama0 -
Meta description tag missing in crawl diagnostics
Each week I've been looking at my crawl diagnostics and seomoz still flags a few pages with missing meta description although they are definitely in there. Any ideas on why this would be happening?
Technical SEO | | British_Hardwoods0