Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Duplicate title-tags with pagination and canonical

    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.

    Duplicate title-tags with pagination and canonical

    Technical SEO
    4
    7
    8021
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • MagicDude4Eva
      MagicDude4Eva last edited by

      Some time back we implemented the Google recommendation for pagination (the rel="next/prev"). GWMT now reports 17K pages with duplicate title-tags (we have about 1,1m products on our site and about 50m pages indexed in Google)

      As an example we have properties listed in various states and the category title would be "Properties for Sale in [state-name]".

      A paginated search page or browsing a category (see also http://searchengineland.com/implementing-pagination-attributes-correctly-for-google-114970) would then include the following:

      The title for each page is the same - so to avoid the duplicate title-tags issue, I would think one would have the following options:

      • Ignore what Google says
      • Change the canonical to http://www.site.com/property/state.html (which would then only show the first XX results)
      • Append a page number to the title "Properties for Sale in [state-name] | Page XX"
      • Have all paginated pages use noindex,follow - this would then result in no category page being indexed

      Would you have the canonical point to the individual paginated page or the base page?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • garyshack
        garyshack @Dr-Pete last edited by

        Dr. Pete,

        Do you have any search/sort filters that may be spinning out other copies, beyond just the paginated series? That could be clouding the issue, and these things do get complicated. - How about this is the case? What would you recommend?

        Gary

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • MagicDude4Eva
          MagicDude4Eva @MagicDude4Eva last edited by

          Since last week we have chosen to append the page number to the title. Let's see if/how GWMTs status changes.

          I would think that the next possible flag would then be on the page-description on paginated pages 😉

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Dr-Pete
            Dr-Pete Staff @MagicDude4Eva last edited by

            I suspect you're ok, then. I'd watch those GWT numbers, but unless you're seeing problems with indexation and ranking, then I'd just consider that a notice. I think you're handling it by the book, at least as well as currently possible with Google's changing and somewhat mixed signals on the subject.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • MagicDude4Eva
              MagicDude4Eva @Dr-Pete last edited by

              Thanks for that answer. I am already using the pageNo in GWMT (as paginates). None of the searches spin out other copies - what I see in GWMT is only related to browsing through a product category and paginating.

              Dr-Pete MagicDude4Eva 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Dr-Pete
                Dr-Pete Staff last edited by

                Unfortunately, it can be really tough to tell if Google is honoring the rel=prev/next tags, but I've had gradually better luck with those tags this year. I honestly the GWT issue is a mistake on Google's part, and probably isn't a big deal. They do technically index all of the pages in the series, but the rel=prev/next tags should mitigate any ranking issues that could occur from near-duplicate content. You could add the page # to the title, but I doubt it would have any noticeable impact (other than possibly killing the GWT warning).

                I would not canonical to the top page - that's specifically not recommended by Google and has fallen in disfavor over the past couple of years. Technically, you can canonical to a "View All" page, but that has its own issues (practically speaking - such as speed and usability).

                Do you have any search/sort filters that may be spinning out other copies, beyond just the paginated series? That could be clouding the issue, and these things do get complicated.

                I've had luck in the past with using META NOINDEX, FOLLOW on pages 2+ of pagination, but I've gradually switched to rel=prev/next. Google seems to be getting pickier about NOINDEX, and doesn't always follow the cues consistently. Unfortunately, this is true for all of the cues/tags these days.

                Sorry, that's a very long way of saying that I suspect you're ok in this case, as long as the tags are properly implemented. You could tell GWT to ignore the page= parameter in parameter handling, but I'm honestly not sure what impact that has in conjunction with rel=prev/next. It might kill the warning, but the warning's just a warning.

                MagicDude4Eva garyshack 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 4
                • matbennett
                  matbennett last edited by

                  I frequently use the page number in titles.  It's not a bad solution where you want them all to get indexed.

                  Keep an eye on whether it affects CTR from the results though. I also like to ensure that there is always a link to the first page of results. This is useful for the user and also helps push more authority to that first page so that it is more likely to be the one that appears.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • GhillC

                    Duplicated titles and meta descriptions

                    Hi, Dealing with both my duplicated titles and meta descriptions i'm wondering if there's a "quick" win I could potentially implement asap. A bit of background:
                    Say I've 4 pages structured that way: domain.com/us/productA.html for the US domain.com/gb/productA.html the UK domain.com/fr/productA.html for France domain.com/de/productA.html For Germany At the moment, both my page titles and meta-descriptions are duplicated all over the place for product A.
                    Title is reading "Product A - company name"
                    MD is a bit better, being translated in all 3 languages (En, Fr, DE). Therefore being the same for the US and for the UK. Ideally, I would get unique page titles and MD all over the place. However, due to time and resource constraints, I can't make it happen overnight. So my questions are pretty simple:
                    1. Can I create a rule for page titles to be "Product A - country - company name" or similar? Would that be enough to make the page titles unique? Is there any value doing so?
                    2. Can I "localize" duplicate MD by simply naming the country? I assume it is not enough in this case as all the rest would be copy/pasted. Ideally speaking, both my page titles and MD would be completely unique but I can't afford doing so in the short term. Thanks!

                    Technical SEO | | GhillC
                    0
                  • iHasco

                    Getting rid of pagination - redirect all paginated pages or leave them to 404?

                    Hi all, We're currently in the process of updating our website and we've agreed that one of the things we want to do is get rid of all our pagination (currently used on the blog and product review areas) and instead implement load more on scroll. The question I have is... should we redirect all of the paginated pages and if so, where to? (My initial thoughts were either to the blog homepage or to the archive page) OR do we leave them to just 404? Bear in mind we have thousands of paginated pages 😕 Here's our blog area btw - https://www.ihasco.co.uk/blog  Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

                    Technical SEO | | iHasco
                    0
                  • amastone

                    Canonical tag use for ecommerce product page detail

                    Hi, I have a category page I want to rank. This page has 24 different products quite similar but not exactly the same.
                    I want to use canonical tag in any product to the parent category. 
                    Is this a right use of the canonical? 
                    Category page I'm talking about is : Finger bits If I understand how to use canonical tags I can improve all my category pages. thanks marco

                    Technical SEO | | amastone
                    0
                  • Dynata_panel_marketing

                    Bing webmaster tools incorrectly showing missing title and description tags

                    Hey all, Was wondering if anyone else has come across this issue. Bing is showing title and description tags missing in the head of my wordpress blog. I can't seem to find any documentation on this. Thanks, Roman

                    Technical SEO | | Dynata_panel_marketing
                    0
                  • patilhimanshu

                    Can OG titles be used as a substitute for Meta titles

                    We use og (open graph) titles in lieu of meta titles. Is there any downside to using just one. Should we be using both og and meta titles on our page. Appreciate any insight. Himanshu

                    Technical SEO | | patilhimanshu
                    0
                  • Mobify

                    Why is Google replacing our title tags with URLs in SERP?

                    Hey guys, We've noticed that Google is replacing a lot of our title tags with URLs in SERP. As far as we know, this has been happening for the last month or so and we can't seem to figure out why. I've attached a screenshot for your reference. What we know: depending on the search query, the title tag may or may not be replaced. this doesn't seem to have any connection to the relevance of the title tag vs the url. results are persistent on desktop and mobile. the length of the title tag doesn't seem to correlate with the replacement. the replacement is happening at mass, to dozens of pages. Any ideas as to why this may be happening? Thanks in advance,
                    Peter mobify-site-www.mobify.com---Google-Search.png

                    Technical SEO | | Mobify
                    0
                  • aj613

                    Do H2 tags carry more weight than h4 tags?

                    Of course H tags are key signals for relevance in search.  Does an h2 tag send a significantly "louder" signal than an h4 tag?

                    Technical SEO | | aj613
                    0
                  • groovykarma

                    Why "title missing or empty" when title tag exists?

                    Greetings!  On Dec 1, 2011 in a SEOMoz campaign, two crawl metrics shot up from zero (Nov 17, Nov 24). "Title missing or empty" was 9,676. "Duplicate page content" was 9,678. Whoa!  Content at site has not changed. I checked a sample of web pages and each seems to have a proper TITLE tag. Page content differs as well -- albeit we list electronic part numbers of hard-to-find parts, which look similar. I found a similar post http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-crawl-error-title-missing-or-empty-when-there-is-already-title-and-meta-desciption-in-place . In answer, Sha ran Screaming Frog crawler.  I ran Frog crawler on a few hundred pages.   Titles were found and hash codes were unique.  Hmmm. Site with errors is http://electronics1.usbid.com Small sample of pages with errors: electronics1.usbid.com/catalog_10.html
                    electronics1.usbid.com/catalog_100.html
                    electronics1.usbid.com/catalog_1000.html I've tried to reproduce errors yet I cannot. What am I missing please? Thanks kindly, Loren

                    Technical SEO | | groovykarma
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.