Why use noindex, follow vs rel next/prev

[jrjames83]

Look at what www.shutterstock.com/cat-26p3-Abstract.html

does with their search results page 3 for 'Abstract' - same for page 2-N in the paginated series.

| name="robots" content="NOINDEX, FOLLOW"> |
|   |

Why is this a better alternative then using the next/prev, per Google's official statement on pagination? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663744

Which doesn't even mention this as an option. Any ideas? Does this improve the odds of the first page in the paginated series ranking for the target term? There can't be a 'view all page' because there are simply too many items.

• Jeff

[jrjames83]

Hmmm - good thought. I wonder if Google is giving out deliberately bad advice for dealing with paginated sets, in that they never mention <noindex, follow="">as a viable alternative to next/prev. </noindex,>

If each paginated page is all unique assets (photos), why would it be dupe?

J

[Mark_Ginsberg]

I don't think they're "gaming" Googlebot - I think they're trying to help the bots properly crawl through the site, index the relevant content, but not create hundreds of thousands of empty pages that will simply dilute their index and lower the overall value of the site in the search engine's eyes - I think they're trying to keep the Panda hungry and not provide it with lots of yummy food for it's low quality content hungry stomach.

This is why they are noindexing the pages - not to game the system, but to actually play by the system's rules.

[jrjames83]

Thanks Mark - if you disable javascript or impersonate Google-bot using a browser extension, then click on one of the main categories on the homepage bottom nav, you arrive here:

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5-Education.html

and click next, you get a URL like this: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5p2-Education.html

which is noindex,follow

if I arrive at the site without impersonating google-bot:

http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5-Education.html#page=2

with a canonical back to http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5-Education.html

So it seems they are trying to literally game Google - is there any evidence this works?

[Mark_Ginsberg]

It seems like they noindexed that page because it may be part of an antiquated version of the site navigation/structure, or part of the cms and not something they want to promote. Not sure how you got there, but when you get to the primary version of a category, and then click through to the next page, the items shown change via ajax and the URL stays the same, just with a parameter that this is the second set of items being shown.

With the url staying the same, for their primary path of navigation, I don't think rel prev/next would be relevant. And these other pages probably created by the cms but not easily accessible they've noindexed - that's my best guess

[Highland]

There's more than one way to skin a cat. So while rel next/prev is an option, you could also dump it all out in one page OR you could also noindex your search page and let your sitemap do the work of notifying Google of your pages. I don't know that it's better (I would guess not but that's just a guess) but you could do it that way and not hurt yourself.