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.
Rel="prev" / "next"
-
Hi guys,
The tech department implemented rel="prev" and rel="next" on this website a long time ago.
We also added a canonical tag to the 'own' page.We're talking about the following situation:
However we still see a situation where a lot of paginated pages are visible in the SERP.
Is this just a case of rel="prev" and "next" being directives to Google?
And in this specific case, Google deciding to not only show the 1st page in the SERP, but still show most of the paginated pages in the SERP?Please let me know, what you think.
Regards,
Tom -
Interesting development which may be of interest to you Ernst:
Google admitted just the other day that they "haven't supported rel=next/prev for years." https://searchengineland.com/google-apologizes-for-relnext-prev-mixup-314494
"Should you remove the markup? Probably not. Google has communicated this morning in a video hangout that while it may not use rel=next/prev for search, it can still be used by other search engines and by browsers, among other reasons. So while Google may not use it for search indexing, rel=prev/next can still be useful for users. Specifically some browsers might use those annotations for things like prefetching and accessibility purposes."
-
I was looking into this today and happened across this line in Google's Search Console Help documents:
rel="next" and rel="prev" are compatible with rel="canonical" values. You can include both declarations in the same page. For example, a page can contain both of the following HTML tags:
Here's the link to the doc - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en
But I wouldn't be using a canonical to somewhere else and the rel="next" directives.
-
I had never actually considered that. My thought is, no. I'd literally just leave canonicals entirely off ambiguous URLs like that. Have seen a lot of instances lately where over-zealous sculpting has led to loss of traffic. In the instance of this exact comment / reply, it's just my hunch here. I'd just remove the tag entirely. There's always risk in adding layers of unrequired complexity, even if it's not immediately obvious
-
I'm going to second what @effectdigital is outlining here. Google does what they want, and sometimes they index paginated pages on your site. If you have things setup properly and you are still seeing paginated pages when you do a site: search in Google then you likely need to strengthen your content elsewhere because Google still sees these paginated URLs as authoritative for your domain.
I have a question for you @effectdigital - Do you still self-canonical with rel= prev / next? I mean, I knew that you wouldn't want to canonical to another URL, but I hadn't really thought about the self-canonical until I read something you said above. Hadn't really thought about that one haha.
Thanks!
-
Both are directives to google. All of the "rel=" links are directives, including hreflang, alternate/mobile, AMP, prev/next
It's not really necessary to use a canonical tag in addition to any of the other "rel=" family links
A canonical tag says to Google: "I am not the real version of this page, I am non-canonical. For the canonical version of the page, please follow this canonical tag. Don't index me at all, index the canonical destination URL"
The pagination based prev/next links say to Google: "I am the main version of this page, or one of the other paginated URLs. Did you know, if you follow this link - you can find and index more pages of content if you want to"
So the problem you create by using both, is creating the following dialogue to Google:
1.) "Hey Google. Follow this link to index paginated URLs if they happen to have useful content on"
*Google goes to paginated URL
2.) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE Google!? I am not canonical, go back where you came from #buildawall"
*Google goes backwards to non-paginated URL
3.) "Hey Google. Follow this link to index paginated URLs if they happen to have useful content on"
*Google goes to paginated URL
4.) "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE Google!? I am not canonical, go back where you came from"
*Google goes backwards to non-paginated URL
... etc.
As you can see, it's confusing to tell Google to crawl and index URLs with one tag, then tell them not to with another. All your indexation factors (canonical tags, other rel links, robots tags, HTTP header X-Robots, sitemap, robots.txt files) should tell the SAME, logical story (not different stories, which contradict each other directly)
If you point to a web page via any indexation method (rel links, sitemap links) then don't turn around and say, actually no I've changed my mind I don't want this page indexed (by 'canonicalling' that URL elsewhere). If you didn't want a page to be indexed, then don't even point to it via other indexation methods
A) If you do want those URLs to be indexed by Google:
1) Keep in mind that by using rel prev/next, Google will know they are pagination URLs and won't weight them very strongly. If however, Google decides that some paginated content is very useful - it may decide to rank such URLs
2) If you want this, remove the canonical tags and leave rel=prev/next deployment as-is
B) If you don't want those URLs to be indexed by Google:
1) This is only a directive, Google can disregard it but it will be much more effective as you won't be contradicting yourself
2) Remove the rel= prev / next stuff completely from paginated URLs. Leave the canonical tag in place and also add a Meta no-index tag to paginated URLs
Keep in mind that, just because you block Google from indexing the paginated URLs, it doesn't necessarily mean that the non-paginated URLs will rank in the same place (with the same power) as the paginated URLs (which will be, mostly lost from the rankings). You may get lucky in that area, you may not (depending upon the content similarity of both URLs, depending whether or not Google's perceived reason to rank that URL - hinged strongly on a piece of content that exists only in the paginated URL variant)
My advice? Don't be a control freak and use option (B). Instead use option (A). Free traffic is free traffic, don't turn your nose up at it
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
-
Optimization for "Search by Photos" feature
Howdy, fellow mozzers, Does anyone know what affects a given company photos show up in the "Search by Photos" section? I can't find any decent info.. Here is the link to SEL, describing the feature (not even google themselves seem to have an announcement about it). https://searchengineland.com/google-showing-mobile-search-by-photos-option-in-selected-local-verticals-323237 Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DmitriiK0 -
Are rel=author and rel=publisher meta tags currently in use?
Hello, Do these meta tags have any current usage? <meta name="author" content="Author Name"><meta name="publisher" content="Publisher Name"> I have also seen this usage linking to a companies Google+ Page:Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | srbello0 -
"sex" in non-adult domain name
I have a client with a domain that has "sex" in the domain name. For example, electronicsexpo.com. The domain ranks for a few keywords related to the services offered. It is an old domain that has been online for over 10 years. It ranks well for local keywords. No real SEO effort has been made on this domain, so it is rather a clean slate. I am going to be doing SEO on this site. Will the fact that the word "sex" exists in the name have any sort of negative consequence. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING adult related or pornographic on this site. I would think that search engines are sophisticated enough to differentiate, but would potential customers with things like parental filters be blocked from viewing content? Is this hurtful in anyway? If so, would I be better off changing domain names? TIA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
When is it recommended to use a self referencing rel "canonical"?
In what type of a situation is it the best type of practice to use a self referencing rel "canonical" tag? Are there particular practices to be cautious of when using a self referencing rel "canonical" tag? I see this practice used mainly with larger websites but I can't find any information that really explains when is a good time to make use of this practice for SEO purposes. Appreciate all feedback. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO_Promenade0 -
Why is "Noindex" better than a "Canonical" for Pagination?
"Noindex" is a suggested pagination technique here: http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284, and everyone seems to agree that you shouldn't canonicalize all pages in a series to the first page, but I'd love if someone can explain why "noindex" is better than a canonical?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Should I NOFOLLOW my "Add To Cart" buttons?
Hello and Merry Christmass Should I NOFOLLOW my "Add To Cart" buttons? My e-commerce site has hundreds of products. Content wise, there is no real value to the reader on that page (besides for some testimonials and "why here" sentences). So it is not a page you'd want / expect to find in the SERPs. Also, with hundreds of links pointing to this page it would be "stronger" than other important pages which doesn't make sense. Last but not least, if I have limited time that the bots are on my site, why keep sending them to a non important page. This is why I am leaning to nofollowing the "add to cart" buttons and looking for reinforcements. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Can too many "noindex" pages compared to "index" pages be a problem?
Hello, I have a question for you: our website virtualsheetmusic.com includes thousands of product pages, and due to Panda penalties in the past, we have no-indexed most of the product pages hoping in a sort of recovery (not yet seen though!). So, currently we have about 4,000 "index" page compared to about 80,000 "noindex" pages. Now, we plan to add additional 100,000 new product pages from a new publisher to offer our customers more music choice, and these new pages will still be marked as "noindex, follow". At the end of the integration process, we will end up having something like 180,000 "noindex, follow" pages compared to about 4,000 "index, follow" pages. Here is my question: can this huge discrepancy between 180,000 "noindex" pages and 4,000 "index" pages be a problem? Can this kind of scenario have or cause any negative effect on our current natural SEs profile? or is this something that doesn't actually matter? Any thoughts on this issue are very welcome. Thank you! Fabrizio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Is it a bad idea to have a "press" page and link to press mentions of our company?
We've recently been getting quite a bit of press. Would it be wise to create a "press" page and link to mentions of us or would this devalue the links on the press pages as Google may think they reciprocal?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JenniferDacosta0