Why is pagination SEO such a mystery in 2021?

[Nobody1616542228134]

Hi folks.

I would like to discuss pagination.

I use WordPress (Genesis, specifically).

I ran my site through a site scan and it flagged an error which told me that my blog was producing duplicate meta descriptions because the  blog is paginated - the same meta description from the blog page is being used on Page 2, Page 3 etc.

I looked into this and the Internet is awash with many other people scratching around for a solution.

My understanding is that using a canonical link on the first page is not a good idea, because it says to Google that only Page 1 of the blog is important.

I also read an article that states Google no longer reads the Rel=Prev/Next code that could be used to tell Google to ignore the issue.

So, what's the solution?

Do I even need one?

As a side-thought, it seems to me that pagination is, well, pretty useless. I mean, if my blog has 20 pages and I've worked hard to create content, who is going to click through to anywhere near page 20? Nobody. There has to be a smarter way for people on-site to access content.

I would love your thoughts on all of this.

Cheers.

[Nobody1616542228134]

Thanks, Paddy!

That was well timed!

I am in the process of developing a blog and am lining up my ducks SEO-wise before I go live. I think I have opened a can of worms.

I have asked the question of StudioPress - why a page allocated to Posts Page is not canonicalised, and neither are paginated pages. Category pages are canonicalised but I'd rather show a dedicated blog page as opposed to a category page for the blog (I only have one category).

I don't want to use a plugin.

I have even been tempted by Ghost but looks like I need a PhD to figure that out!

Thanks again

[Paddy_Moogan]

Hi there,

For what it's worth, pagination is a source of contention for many SEOs, so you're not alone here

I think part of the reason for this is that there isn't a perfect answer and I'm yet to see consistent, definitive proof of any one answer being right, particularly when it comes to different types of websites. As you say, for a blog, it may not be that useful anyway. Whereas for an ecommerce website, it's probably more important but even then, users are not likely to click through to hundreds of paginated pages, but search engines may need to crawl them.

Anyway, the timing of your question is funny because earlier I came across this tweet thread from Patrick Stox which does a great job of laying out the options. I'd recommend taking a read:

https://twitter.com/patrickstox/status/1370218363440537601

Ultimately, keep in mind what your goals are - I imagine driving more traffic to key pages on your website. I'd also look at how things are performing at the moment and make decisions based on that. If your paginated pages are getting lots of traffic, you may not want to tinker too much with that. If they aren't, then you can make changes far more easily because you're not risking too much.

I hope that helps a bit!

Paddy