NOINDEX Pagination Pages

[poolguy]

Is it bad to NOINDEX, FOLLOW your pagination pages?

[THB]

But how do you individually optimize hundreds, or even thousands, of additional pages?  It MUST be template-driven with subtle changes such as "My Products - Page X", which may be even too subtle for Google to render a non-duplicate content page, no?

I completely understand your point, but I have been struggling with this for a while now.  I hate the thought of my paged pages competing with the top page (page 1).

What more could you possibly do to optimize H1, Title, etc., tags than to simply add the current page # (while keeping things automated over thousands of pages)?

Any additional thoughts, anybody?

[AlanBleiweiss]

I just answered this but forgot to log-in so when I submitted, it was lost.  Long answer but worth the retyping!

Some people might disagree with me however I've personally always recommended not implementing the noindex,follow.  By allowing them to all be indexed, when executed properly, you can gain significant ground.  But it takes a lot of footwork.

Case example: online retailer.  Eight main categories, over 100 sub-categories, tens of thousands of product SKUs.  After implementing my pagination recommendation, total pages indexed skyrocketed (not only were sub-category pages now indexed, but more individual product pages were also indexed and ranked.  Categories and sub-category primary keyword phrases all rose in ranking and organic visits went up exponentially.

Keys:

Every page Title, URL and h1 needs to be unique.  Even if all you do is append them with "Page X".

To ensure pages aren't then deemed duplicate content, don't just list product thumbnails - optimize their alt attributes, add a caption.  Ideally, have unique descriptive content on each pagination page as well.  Not required if you have enough products on each, but can help.

Every product detail page should have quality unique content - enough to ensure those are not seen as duplicates due to the common shared header, nav, sidebar and footers.

The biggest challenge will be building quality inbound links to as many of those sub-category pages (and even pagination pages within each, if possible), and to as many individual product pages as you can.

When you do that, every page in each section will be given more ranking weight both down the funnel and back up.