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.
Why is "Noindex" better than a "Canonical" for Pagination?
-
"Noindex" is a suggested pagination technique here: http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284, and everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't canonicalize all pages in a series to the first page, but I'd love if someone can explain why "noindex" is better than a canonical?
-
I guess the short answer is that Google frowns on this practice, since the pages aren't really duplicates. Since they frown on it, they may choose to simply ignore the canonical, and you'll be left with the problem. I think the general problem is that this requires a lot of extra crawling/processing on their part, so it's not that it's "black at" - it's just a pain for them.
I've typically found putting a NOINDEX on pages 2+ is more effective, even in 2014. That said, I do think rel=prev/next has become a viable option, especially if your site isn't high risk for duplicates. Rel=prev/next can, in theory, allow Google to rank any page in the series, without the negative effects of the near-duplicates.
Keep in mind that you can combine rel=prev/next and rel=canonical if you're using sorts/filters/etc. Google does support the use of rel=canonical for variants of the same search page. It gets pretty confusing and the simple truth is that they've made some mixed statements that seem to change over time.
-
The best part of adding the noindex tag is hiding the pagination pages from the search engine's search index, which will make only the highest quality pages available in the search results. This gives a signal of your website being a better one with good content. The CTR rate will be higher too.
-
Hi,
I would like to address the following part of your original query without even going to the article that you referred to:
"everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't canonicalize all pages in a series to the first page"
The reason for this is, if you canonicalize all the pages in a series to the first page, you are giving a hint to Google that only the first page is what you are concerned of and it should be indexed. With this, all the non-canonical pages will be taken out from the index which you would not want to happen especially when the content of these pages is unique.
So depending on your requirement you can opt for either a 'view all method' or 'rel=prev/next' method for your pagination requirements.
Good luck.
Best,
Devanur Rafi
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
-
Optimization for "Search by Photos" feature
Howdy, fellow mozzers, Does anyone know what affects a given company photos show up in the "Search by Photos" section? I can't find any decent info.. Here is the link to SEL, describing the feature (not even google themselves seem to have an announcement about it). https://searchengineland.com/google-showing-mobile-search-by-photos-option-in-selected-local-verticals-323237 Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DmitriiK2 -
Canonical and Alternate Advice
At the moment for most of our sites, we have both a desktop and mobile version of our sites. They both show the same content and use the same URL structure as each other. The server determines whether if you're visiting from either device and displays the relevant version of the site. We are in a predicament of how to properly use the canonical and alternate rel tags. Currently we have a canonical on mobile and alternate on desktop, both of which have the same URL because both mobile and desktop use the same as explained in the first paragraph. Would the way of us doing it at the moment be correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JH_OffLimits3 -
Are "Powered By..." type footer backlinks good or bad for SEO?
Hi guys, We're running a software company which is also selling WP themes amongst other things. We've heard recently that footer backlinks like "Powered by BigBangThemes" might do more harm than good. Some clients usually forget to change them - so we want to make sure we stop including them in case this is true. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andy.bigbangthemes0 -
Is their value in linking to PPC landing pages and using rel="canonical"
I have ppc landing pages that are similar to my seo page. The pages are shorter with less text with a focus on converting visitors further along in the purchase cycle. My questions are: 1. Is there a benefit for having the orphan ppc pages indexed or should I no index them? 2. If indexing does provide benefits, should I create links from my site to the ppc pages or should I just submit them in a sitemap? 3. If indexed, should I use rel="canonical" and point the ppc versions to the appropriate organic page? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandExpSteve0 -
Should pages with rel="canonical" be put in a sitemap?
I am working on an ecommerce site and I am going to add different views to the category pages. The views will all have different urls so I would like to add the rel="canonical" tag to them. Should I still add these pages to the sitemap?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Is it better "nofollow" or "follow" links to external social pages?
Hello, I have four outbound links from my site home page taking users to join us on our social Network pages (Twitter, FB, YT and Google+). if you look at my site home page, you can find those 4 links as 4 large buttons on the right column of the page: http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/ Here is my question: do you think it is better for me to add the rel="nofollow" directive to those 4 links or allow Google to follow? From a PR prospective, I am sure that would be better to apply the nofollow tag, but I would like Google to understand that we have a presence on those 4 social channels and to make clearly a correlation between our official website and our official social channels (and then to let Google understand that our social channels are legitimate and related to us), but I am afraid the nofollow directive could prevent that. What's the best move in this case? What do you suggest to do? Maybe the nofollow is irrelevant to allow Google to correlate our website to our legitimate social channels, but I am not sure about that. Any suggestions are very welcome. Thank you in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau9 -
Is it a bad idea to have a "press" page and link to press mentions of our company?
We've recently been getting quite a bit of press. Would it be wise to create a "press" page and link to mentions of us or would this devalue the links on the press pages as Google may think they reciprocal?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JenniferDacosta0