Pagination parameters and canonical

[teconsite]

Hello,

We have a site that manages pagination through parameters in urls, this way:

friendly-url.html
friendly-url.html?p=2
friendly-url.html?p=3
...

We've rencently added the canonical tag pointing to friendly-url.html for all paginated results.

In search console, we have the "p" parameter identified by google. 
Now that the canonical has been added, should we still configure the parameter in search console, and tell google that it is being use for pagination?

Thank you!

[dohertyjf]

Hi Teconsite, this is a great question.

I would not recommend marketing the "p" parameter in Search Console. Instead, I'd leave it as "Let Google Decide" and use  your pagination SEO implementation to guide the search engines.

There is still a lot of debate around pagination as it relates to SEO. The way I have always implemented is is:

• Every paginated page canonicals to itself, because you do not want the search engines to start ignoring your paginated pages which are there somewhat for users, but also for SEO.
• Use rel next/prev to help Google understand that they are in pagination, which will also help them rank the beginning of pagination for the terms you are trying to rank for.
• Use noindex/follow on pages 2-N to be sure they stay out of Google's index.
• Use the numbers showing how long pagination is to drive the search engines deep into your pagination to get all of your products/whatever indexed.  This is often done through linking to page 1, the last page, and the 3-5 pages on either side of the page you are currently on. So page 7 of 20 would like to page 1, pages 5-9, and page 20.

The reason most people say to canonical pages 2-N to the base page is to preserve any link equity pointing to these pages and help the first page rank. However, I have almost never seen a deep paginated page with links, and if you have architected pagination correctly then the equity going into pages 2-N will also flow to page 1, just like product pages linking to category pages.

Hope this helps!

[Gabriele_Layoutweb]

In this Moz guide regarding Google webmaster recommendations, it says you should still set the paginated page parameter in Google's Webmaster Tools:

https://moz.com/ugc/seo-guide-to-google-webmaster-recommendations-for-pagination (search for the part "Coding Instruction for the View-All Option")

Hope this helps!

[anthonydnelson]

You are sort of in an odd situation. You could tell Google that the "p" parameter is for pagination and they would better understand that. However, the canonical tag usage sort of tells Google that all of your paginated pages are actually duplicates of the first page.

[teconsite]

Hello Anthony!

Thank you for your answer. I have been reading about the rel/prev and the canonical, and I found two different points of view about this. I know the recommendation of Google is the one that you have mentioned above, but as the CMS (Prestashop) is managing the paginated results the way I have shown, that is the one I am using.

The question is, imagine that I have implemented the canonical the way you say before (or the way I did, I doesn't really matter for my question), should I still tell google that "p" parameter is a pagination parameter in Google Webmaster Tools or it's not necessary?

Thank you!

[anthonydnelson]

Typically, if you want to use the Canonical Tag for pagination, you would have it point to a View All style page, such as friendly-url.html&view=all.

If you have too many products/pages in the pagination series, you might want to consider removing the canonical tag and implementing rel=prev/next. You can get more info here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html