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.
Paginated Pages Which Shouldnt' Exist..
-
Hi
I have paginated pages on a crawl which shouldn't be paginated:
https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs
My crawl shows:
<colgroup><col width="377"></colgroup>
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=2 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=3 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=4 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=5 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=6 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=7 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=8 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=9 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=10 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=11 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=12 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=13 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=14 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=15 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=16 |
| https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=17 |Where is this coming from?
Thank you
-
You will also have to get those URLs out of the index once you fix the rel next/prev issue. In order to do that effectively, they should return a 404 or 410 status code in the HTTP header so Google knows that they no longer exist (even though they never really did in the first place). Otherwise, it's what is known as a "soft 404" in which the page doesn't really exist, but returns a 200 (OK) status code, which is confusing to Google if you don't want them indexed.
-
Hi Becky
I can see chairs:
https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs
But the paginated versions above are not in there. (can you see them?)
All you need to do is remove this directive for pages without a page 2: rel="next" href="https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=2" > as there is no page 2 for chairs.
Regards
Nigel
-
Hi Nigel
Thanks for jumping in. I'm confused as I have found the pages on my screaming frog crawl?
This page https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs shouldn't have any pagination as there are no additional pages, but there is rel=next in the source code...
Now I'm a bit confused!
Becky
-
Yes I've just gone through every top level page too & pagination is awful, so I'm compiling a list and a case to push it.
It's pretty bad across the site, so I'll push for this to be updated. I find new issues with it all the time..
Thanks for your help!
-
Yes exactly. Even though the pages don't exist to the user, they still technically exist. If I were you, I'd take a very deep look at pagination on your site. If this is happening at scale, then fixing it could be a major improvement to your site. I took a look and it seems to be happening on all your top-level category pages like Chairs, Office Furniture, Shelving & Racking, etc.
These paginated pages are essentially a bunch of duplicate pages of your main category pages, each with a self-referencing canonical (which is the proper way to set up pagination). So Google could be extremely confused about which one to rank. In most cases, Google will rank page 1 because the use of rel="next"/rel="prev" is essentially telling Google that page 1 is the canonical version. However, you're still opening yourself up to the possibility of Google crawling all of these duplicate pages which is a huge waste on your crawl budget.
Hope that helps!
-
Hi
Thank you both.
We do have issues with our pagination which I've raised with developers, but it's taking forever to sort out. I'll flag this as well.
So even though the content on the paginated pages for Chairs doesn't exist we still need to remove the tags on these - https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs?page=10
-
If you view your source code, you'll notice you are actually using rel="next" and rel="prev" on the main category page (https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/chairs). This is why you (and most likely Googlebot as well) are crawling these paginated pages. Even though you don't have links to the paginated pages on the main category page, they still exist and you're giving crawlers the directive (rel next / rel prev) to crawl them.
If you remove rel="next" on the category home page, that should help but you should really remove rel="next" and rel="prev" on the paginated pages as well. Unless you do that, Google will still find them and crawl them because they're aware these pages exist and they're likely indexed.
Here's a great resource on understanding pagination as well as the correct use of rel="next" and rel="prev" from Maile Ohye at Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njn8uXTWiGg
Hope this helps!
Cheers!
-Tyler -
Nice website by the way. It looks very professional. And your 49 DA is very impressive.
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
-
Is it ok to repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?
I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term. I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information? If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead? If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word? Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated! V.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vitzz1 -
Readd/Reindex a page that was 410'd
A script of ours had an error that caused some pages we didn't wish 410'd to be 410'd, we caught it in about 12 hours but for some pages it was too late. My question is, will those pages be reindexed again and how will that affect their page ranking will they eventually be back where they were? Would submitting a site map with them help, or what would be the best way to correct this error (submit the links to google indexer maybe?).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wana-Ryd0 -
Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?
Hi, everybody In the Moz ranking tool for one of our client's (the client sells sport equipment) account, there is a trend where more and more of their landing pages are product pages instead of category pages. The optimal landing page for the term "sleeping bag" is of course the sleeping bag category page, but Google is sending them to a product page for a specific sleeping bag.. What could be the critical factors that makes the product page more relevant than the category page as the landing page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo0 -
Substantial difference between Number of Indexed Pages and Sitemap Pages
Hey there, I am doing a website audit at the moment. I've notices substantial differences in the number of pages indexed (search console), the number of pages in the sitemap and the number I am getting when I crawl the page with screamingfrog (see below). Would those discrepancies concern you? The website and its rankings seems fine otherwise. Total indexed: 2,360 (Search Consule)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Online-Marketing-Guy
About 2,920 results (Google search "site:example.com")
Sitemap: 1,229 URLs
Screemingfrog Spider: 1,352 URLs Cheers,
Jochen0 -
Alt tag for src='blank.gif' on lazy load images
I didn't find an answer on a search on this, so maybe someone here has faced this before. I am loading 20 images that are in the viewport and a bit below. The next 80 images I want to 'lazy-load'. They therefore are seen by the bot as a blank.gif file. However, I would like to get some credit for them by giving a description in the alt tag. Is that a no-no? If not, do they all have to be the same alt description since the src name is the same? I don't want to mess things up with Google by being too aggressive, but at the same time those are valid images once they are lazy loaded, so would like to get some credit for them. Thanks! Ted
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood0 -
What if page exists for desktop but not mobile?
I have a domain (no subdomains) that serves up different dynamic content for mobile/desktop pages--each having the exact same page url, kind of a semi responsive design, and will be using "Vary: User-Agent" to give Google a heads up on this setup. However, some of the pages are only valid for mobile or only valid for desktop. In the case of when a page is valid only for mobile (call it mysite.com/mobile-page-only ), Google Webmaster Tools is giving me a soft 404 error under Desktop, saying that the page does not exist, Apparently it is doing that because my program is actually redirecting the user/crawler to the home page. It appears from the info about soft 404 errors that Google is saying since it "doesn't exist" I should give the user a 404 page--which I can make it customized and give the user an option to go to the home page, or choose links from a menu, etc.. My concern is that if I tell the desktop bot that mysite.com/mobile-page-only basically is a 404 error (ie doesn't exist), that it could mess up the mobile bot indexing for that page--since it definitely DOES exist for mobile users.. Does anyone here know for sure that Google will index a page for mobile that is a 404 not found for desktop and vice versa? Obviously it is important to not remove something from an index in which it belongs, so whether Google is careful to differential the two is a very important issue. Has anybody here dealt with this or seen anything from Google that addresses it? Might one be better off leaving it as a soft 404 error? EDIT: also, what about Bing and Yahoo? Can we assume they will handle it the same way? EDIT: closely related question--in a case like mine does Google need a separate sitemap for the valid mobile pages and valid desktop pages even though most links will be in both? I can't tell from reading several q&a on this. Thanks, Ted
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood0 -
Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's
An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Different Header on Home Page vs Sub pages
Hello, I am an SEO/PPC manager for a company that does a medical detox. You can see the site in question here: http://opiates.com. My question is, I've never heard of it specifically being a problem to have a different header on the home page of the site than on the subpages, but I rarely see it either. Most sites, if i'm not mistaken, use a consistent header across most of the site. However, a person i'm working for now said that she has had other SEO's look at the site (above) and they always say that it is a big SEO problem to have a different header on the homepage than on the subpages. Any thoughts on this subject? I've never heard of this before. Thanks, Jesse
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Waismann0