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
-
Looking for opinions on structuring meta title tags/page title/menu title/H1
Hi everyone I am hoping a few of you can share your opinions. I have been having conversations (okay, healthy debates) about how to write/structure meta title tag and how to compliment them with the H1, page title, menu name. To help explain the thought processes I will use a pretend keyword. How about "screwdriver". Case: (I made this up) we are redesigning a website for a construction tools manufacturing company (pretend name: ABC Tools) targeting OEMs who are interested in purchasing large quantities of tools. The product categories (to become main menu items) are Screwdrivers, Nails, Drills, and Hammers. (bear with me .... this is just an example I am making up on the fly) K. Circling back to screwdrivers - let's say we have one landing page (a primary category page and in the main menu) listing products and great details about screwdrivers. Focus keywords are screwdriver manufacturer, screwdriver supplier, construction screwdrivers Below are questions being debated. If you are willing ... how would you address these questions? And, can you explain WHY? QUESTION ONE: How would you structure the meta title tag (feel free to write one of your own) Screwdriver Manufacturer - Construction Screwdriver | ABC Tools ABC Tools - US-based Screwdriver Manufacturer Supplier Near You High-Quality Screwdrivers for Construction with ABC Tools QUESTION TWO: how would you write the H1 on the page? Would it match the meta tag? OR, would you write something different using the primary keyword? QUESTION THREE Remembering this is not a blog post ... it is a primary landing page linked to the main navigation. What would the menu title be? (remember the product categories above are how the main menu items are bucketed) Screwdrivers Screwdriver Manufacturer Typically in WordPress, the H1 and the menu title is auto-populated using the page title (not the title tag)... So, if we use Screwdrivers as the page title but we want the H1 to match the meta title tag, would we manually change the H1? Or, have the page title and title tag match, but manually change the menu item?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brenda.Haines1 -
Lowercase VS. Uppercase Canonical tags?
Hi MOZ, I was hoping that someone could help shed some light on an issue I'm having with URL structure and the canonical tag. The company I work for is a distributor of electrical products and our E-commerce site is structured so that our URL's (specifically, our product detail page URL's) include a portion (the part #) that is all uppercase (e.g: buy/OEL-Worldwide-Industries/AFW-PG-10-10). The issue is that we have just recently included a canonical tag in all of our product detail pages and the programmer that worked on this project has every canonical tag in lowercase instead of uppercase. Now, in GWT, I'm seeing over 20,000-25,000 "duplicate title tags" or "duplicate descriptions". Is this an issue? Could this issue be resolved by simply changing the canonical tag to reflect the uppercase URL's? I'm not too well versed in canonical tags and would love a little insight. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
Canonical tag - but Title and Description are slightly different
I am building a new SEO site with a "Silo" / Themed architecture. I have a travel website selling hotel reservations. I list a hotel page under a city page - example, www.abc.com/Dallas/Hilton.html Then I use that same property under a segment within the city - example www.abc.com/Dallas/Downtown/Hilton.html, so there are two URLs with the same content Both pages are identical, except I want to customize the Title and Description. I want to customize the title and description to build a consistent theme - for example the /Downtown/Hilton page will have the words "Near Downtown" in the Title and Description, while the primary city Hilton page will not. So I have two questions about this. First, is it okay to use a canonical tag if the Title and Description are slightly different? Everything else is identical. If so, will Google crawl and comprehend the unique Title and Description on the "Downtown" silo? I want Google to see that I have several "supporting" pages to my main landing page(s). I want to present to Google 5 supporting pages in each silo that each has a supporting keyword theme. But I'm not sure if Google will consider content of pages that point to a different page using the canonical tag. Please see this supporting example: http://d.pr/i/aQPv Thanks for your insights. Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | partnerf0 -
Is this all that is needed for a 'canonical' tag?
Hello, I have a Joomla site. I have put in a plugin to make the page source show: eg. <link href="[http://www.ditalia.com.au/designer-fabrics-designer-fabric-italian-material-and-french-lace](view-source:http://www.ditalia.com.au/designer-fabrics-designer-fabric-italian-material-and-french-lace)" rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" /> Is this all that is need to tell the search engines to ignore the any other links or indexed pages with a url which is created automatically by the system before the SEF urls are initiated?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | infinart0 -
Urgent Site Migration Help: 301 redirect from legacy to new if legacy pages are NOT indexed but have links and domain/page authority of 50+?
Sorry for the long title, but that's the whole question. Notes: New site is on same domain but URLs will change because URL structure was horrible Old site has awful SEO. Like real bad. Canonical tags point to dev. subdomain (which is still accessible and has robots.txt, so the end result is old site IS NOT INDEXED by Google) Old site has links and domain/page authority north of 50. I suspect some shady links but there have to be good links as well My guess is that since that are likely incoming links that are legitimate, I should still attempt to use 301s to the versions of the pages on the new site (note: the content on the new site will be different, but in general it'll be about the same thing as the old page, just much improved and more relevant). So yeah, I guess that's it. Even thought the old site's pages are not indexed, if the new site is set up properly, the 301s won't pass along the 'non-indexed' status, correct? Thanks in advance for any quick answers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JDMcNamara0 -
What is the difference between link rel="canonical" and meta name="canonical"?
Hi mozzers, I would like to know What is the difference between link rel="canonical" and meta name="canonical"? and is it dangerous to have both of these elements combined together? One of my client's page has the these two elements and kind of bothers me because I only know link rel="canonical" to be relevant to remove duplicates. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Canonical Tags?
I read that Google will "honor" these tags if your website has two url's with duplicate content. The duplicate content does not show up in my SEOmoz crawls report but they do in the search engines and many of "non authoritative links" that are generated from my search feature j(ugly url's with % ...not real user friendly) are ranking higher than the "good URL" links. So if I do the canonical tags I guess my higher ranking bad urls will drop. I even read that google might even completely overlook the links. I read somewhere that the best way to do this is with a 301 redirect...is that correct? I m ranking pretty good with my main keyword terms so I am afraid to make changes not knowing the effect. Any suggestions? Thanks, Boo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Is having a canonical tag for the link that IS the canonical a negative thing?
Throughout our site, canonical tags have been added where needed. However, the canonical tags are also included for the canonical itself. For example, for www.askaquestion.com, the canonical tag has been added as www.askaquestion.com. Will this have a negative impact or does it not really matter whether there is such a loop?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kbbseo0