Question on Pagination - /blog/ vs /blog/?page=1

[jorgensoncompanies]

Question on Pagination

Because we could have /blog/ or /blog/?page=1 as page one would this be the correct way to markup the difference between these two URL? The first page of a sequence could start with either one of these URLs. Clarity around what to do on this first page would be helpful.

Example… Would this be the correct way to do this as these two URLs would have the exact content? Internal links would likely link to /blog/ so signal could be muddy.

URL: https://www.somedomain.com/blog/
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.somedomain.com/blog/?page=1">

URL: https://www.somedomain.com/blog/?page=1
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.somedomain.com/blog/?page=1">

Google is now saying to just use the canonical to the correct paginated URL with page number. You can read that here:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/ecommerce/pagination-and-incremental-page-loading

But they do not clarify what to do on /blog/?page=1 vs /blog/ as they are the exact same thing.

Thanks for your help.

[pau4ner]

Hi, there is no need to add pagination to the first /blog/ page as it is still not paginated. In fact, it is worthy to inspect how some expert and popular SEO blogs manage it, such as Moz (https://moz.com/blog).

The recommendation would be this:

URL: https://www.somedomain.com/blog/
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.somedomain.com/blog/>
<link href="https://somedomain.com/blog/2" rel="next">

And for page 2:
URL: https://somedomain.com/blog/2
<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.somedomain.com/blog/2>
<link href="https://somedomain.com/blog" rel="prev">
<link href="https://somedomain.com/blog/3" rel="next">

I hope that helps!