Pagination

What is Pagination?

Pagination is the practice of dividing content across multiple sequential pages. When you have 500 products in a category, you cannot display them all on a single page without creating performance problems and overwhelming users. Instead, you break them into manageable chunks: page 1, page 2, page 3, and so on.

Common pagination URL patterns include:

• Query parameters: example.com/shoes?page=2
• Path segments: example.com/shoes/page/2
• Numbered URLs: example.com/shoes-2

Pagination is ubiquitous in e-commerce categories, blog archives, search results, and any listing page with substantial content.

Why Pagination Matters for SEO

1. Indexing Deep Content

Products or articles on deeper pagination pages are further from the homepage in terms of crawl depth. Google must traverse the pagination chain (Page 1 → Page 2 → Page 3) to discover content on Page 50.

If pagination is broken or poorly implemented, content on later pages becomes effectively invisible to search engines. These become orphan pages that cannot be discovered through normal crawling.

2. Crawl Budget Efficiency

For large sites, pagination pages consume crawl budget. Google must crawl each paginated page to access the content it contains. Inefficient pagination (redirect chains, slow loading, duplicate parameters) wastes crawl budget.

3. Duplicate Content Risks

Paginated pages often look similar to search engines:

• Same page template
• Same H1 heading ("Shoes")
• Same meta description (if not customized)
• Similar content structure

Without proper signals, Google may treat paginated pages as duplicates and filter them from results.

4. User Experience

Pagination affects how users navigate your content. Poor pagination (missing page links, no "jump to page" options, unclear navigation) frustrates users and increases bounce rates.

Pagination SEO Best Practices

1. Self-Referencing Canonical Tags

Each paginated page should have a canonical tag pointing to itself:

• Page 1 canonical: example.com/shoes
• Page 2 canonical: example.com/shoes?page=2
• Page 3 canonical: example.com/shoes?page=3

Critical mistake to avoid: Do NOT canonicalize Page 2 to Page 1. This tells Google that Page 2 is a duplicate of Page 1, causing Google to ignore Page 2 entirely. All products on Page 2 (and beyond) disappear from the index.

2. Rel="prev" and Rel="next" (Historical Context)

Google officially stopped using rel="prev/next" tags for indexing signals in 2019. However:

• Other search engines (Bing) may still use them
• They provide helpful context for browsers
• They are harmless to include

<!-- On Page 2 -->
<link rel="prev" href="https://example.com/shoes?page=1" />
<link rel="next" href="https://example.com/shoes?page=3" />

3. Include Pagination in Sitemap

Add paginated URLs to your XML sitemap so Google can discover them directly without relying solely on crawling through the pagination chain.

4. Unique Meta Titles and Descriptions

Customize meta content for each paginated page:

• Page 1: "Running Shoes - Free Shipping | ShoeStore"
• Page 2: "Running Shoes - Page 2 | ShoeStore"
• Page 3: "Running Shoes - Page 3 | ShoeStore"

This reduces duplicate content signals and helps users identify which page they are viewing in search results.

5. Accessible Pagination Navigation

Ensure pagination is crawlable:

• Use standard <a href> links, not JavaScript-only navigation
• Include numerical page links, not just "Next/Previous"
• Consider "First" and "Last" page links for long series

View All Page Strategy

If performance allows, offering a "View All" page that displays all content on a single page can simplify SEO:

Approach:

1. Create a single page showing all products/posts
1. Canonicalize all paginated pages to the View All page
1. Ensure the View All page loads efficiently

Considerations:

• Page load time must remain acceptable
• Not practical for categories with thousands of items
• Can improve user experience for comparison shopping
• Mobile experience may suffer with very long pages

If a View All page is too slow or impractical, stick with proper paginated page canonicalization.

Infinite Scroll and Load More

Modern sites often replace traditional pagination with infinite scroll or "Load More" buttons. These require special SEO handling:

The Problem

Infinite scroll typically loads content via JavaScript as users scroll. Search engines cannot scroll — they see only the initially loaded content.

Solutions

Pushstate/History API: Update the URL as users scroll, creating distinct URLs for different states that search engines can access.

Hybrid Approach: Provide traditional paginated URLs that work without JavaScript, while offering infinite scroll as a JavaScript enhancement.

Prerender Critical Content: Ensure the most important products/articles are in the initial HTML, not loaded via JavaScript.

Pagination Parameter Handling

Properly manage URL parameters for pagination:

Consistent Parameter Names

Use consistent parameter naming across your site (page vs p vs pg).

Parameter Order

If you have multiple parameters, maintain consistent ordering to avoid URL variations:

• Consistent: ?page=2&sort=price
• Inconsistent: ?sort=price&page=2 (creates duplicate URL)

Parameter in Google Search Console

You can use Google Search Console's URL Parameters tool to tell Google how to handle pagination parameters (though Google may ignore this guidance).

Pagination Architecture Patterns

Flat Pagination

All paginated pages are at the same level, linked from Page 1:

Page 1 → Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5...

Good for SEO as all pages are one click from Page 1.

Sequential Pagination

Each page links only to adjacent pages:

Page 1 → Page 2 → Page 3 → Page 4...

Creates deep crawl paths. Content on Page 50 is 50 clicks from Page 1.

Hybrid Pagination

Combines sequential links with jump links:

Page 1 → Page 2, Page 3... Page 10... Page 50

Balances usability with crawl efficiency.

Common Pagination Mistakes

Canonicalizing All Pages to Page 1

This removes all content beyond Page 1 from the index. Each page should canonicalize to itself.

Blocking Paginated Pages in Robots.txt

This prevents Google from discovering content on those pages. If content should be indexed, pages must be crawlable.

Noindexing Paginated Pages

Similar to canonicalization mistakes, noindexing pages removes their content from the index while wasting crawl budget.

Broken Pagination Links

Pages that return 404s or redirect incorrectly break the pagination chain, orphaning content on later pages.

JavaScript-Only Pagination

Pagination that requires JavaScript execution may not be properly crawled by search engines.