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.
The Mysterious Case of Pagination, Canonical Tags
-
Hey guys,
My head explodes when I think of this problem. So I will leave it to you guys to find a solution...
My root domain (xxx.com) runs on WordPress platform.
I use Yoast SEO plugin.
The next page of root domain -- page/2/ -- has been canonicalized to the same page -- page/2/ points to page/2/ for example.
The page/2/ and remaining pages also have this rel tags:
I have also added "noindex,follow" to page/2/ and further -- Yoast does this automatically.
Note: Yoast plugin also adds canonical to page/2/...page/3/ automatically.
Same is the case with category pages and tag pages. Oh, and the author pages too -- they all have self-canonicalization, rel prev & rel next tags, and have been "noindex, followed."
Problem:
Am I doing this the way it should be done?
I asked a Google Webmaster employee on rel next and prev tags, and this is what she said: "We do not recommend noindexing later pages, nor rel="canonical"izing everything to the first page." (My bad, last year I was canonicalizing pages to first page).
One of the popular blog, a competitor, uses none of these tags. Yet they rank higher. Others following this format have been hit with every kind of Google algorithm I could think of. I want to leave it to Google to decide what's better, but then again, Yoast SEO plugin rules my blog -- okay, let's say I am a bad coder.
Any help, suggestions, and thoughts are highly appreciated.
Update 1: Paginated pages -- including category pages and tag pages -- have unique snippets; no full-length posts. Thought I'd make that clear.
-
Hey There
Assuming your WordPress theme isn't conflicting with any of this, so long as you select "noindex subpages of archives" in Yoast you should be good to go. No need playing around with anything else.
-Dan
-
--> I think it's important to look at your site as a whole and divide the number of all pages by paginated pages.
I barely have control over these paginated pages. WordPress automatically takes care of this. I do, however, have the power to add a fixed number of links per paginated page. For example, I can set "10" in WordPress panel and every paginated page -- homepage, page/2/ for example -- will have 10 links (10 articles).
Subsequent pages will be automatically created as I feed my blog with more content.
Thanks Irving!
-
The noindex,follow tag on paginated pages will not compromise your sites integrity with Google. I think it's important to look at your site as a whole and divide the number of all pages by paginated pages. If the ratio is above 10%, I would be concerned that the site may appear to be more of a directory and it definitely would make sense to noindex the site. Also, there are paginated pages with just a bunch of links and other paginated pages with a lot more data surrounding the links. The fact that others are ranking higher probably have more to do with overall site content and PR.
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
-
I am trying to generate GEO meta tag for my website where on one page there are multiple locations My question is, Can I add GEO tagging for every address?
Am I restricted to 1 geo tag per page or can i add multiple geo tags ?
Technical SEO | | lina_digital0 -
Does Google read dynamic canonical tags?
Does Google recognize rel=canonical tag if loaded dynamically via javascript? Here's what we're using to load: <script> //Inject canonical link into page head if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname1") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/kapiolani", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname2") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/straub", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname3") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/pali-momi", ""); } if (window.location.href.indexOf("/subdirname4") != -1) { canonicalLink = window.location.href.replace("/wilcox", ""); } if (canonicalLink != window.location.href) { var link = document.createElement('link'); link.rel = 'canonical'; link.href = canonicalLink; document.head.appendChild(link); } script>
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Canonical tag use for ecommerce product page detail
Hi, I have a category page I want to rank. This page has 24 different products quite similar but not exactly the same.
Technical SEO | | amastone
I want to use canonical tag in any product to the parent category.
Is this a right use of the canonical?
Category page I'm talking about is : Finger bits If I understand how to use canonical tags I can improve all my category pages. thanks marco0 -
URL has caps, but canonical does not. Now what?
Hi, Just started working with a site that has the occasional url with a capital, but then the url in the canonical as lower case. Neither, when entered in a browser, resolves to the other. It's a Shopify site. What do you think I should do?
Technical SEO | | 945010 -
Div tags vs. Tables
Is there any reason NOT to code in tables (other than it being outdated) for SEO reasons?
Technical SEO | | EileenCleary0 -
What happens when you put an image in an H1 tag?
I am currently updating some H1 tags for my site but the tags are generated automatically by the text that is entered into a field on our content manager software. However because we need an image in this area as well, the entire field including the code for the image is surrounded by an H1 tag. Is this bad for SEO?
Technical SEO | | eVacStore0 -
Hreflang on non-canonical pages
Hi! I've been trying to figure out what is the best way to solve this dilemma with duplicate content and multiple languages across domains. 1 product info page 2 same product but GREEN
Technical SEO | | LarsEriksson
3 same product but RED
4 same product but YELLOW **Question: ** Since pages 2,3,4 just varies slightly I use the canonical tag to indicate they are duplicates of page 1. Now I also want to indicate there are other language versions with the_ rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _element. Should I place the _rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _on the canonical page only pointing to the canonical page with "x" language. Should I place the _rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _on all pages pointing to the canonical page with the "x" language? Should I place the _rel="alternate" hreflang="x" _on all pages and then point it to the translated page (even if it is not a canonical page) ? /Lars0 -
Use of Meta Tag - MSSmartTagsPreventParsing
We've inherited some sites from another developer that had the following tag: All references I can find to it are from 2004. What is the purpose and is it worth including in pages/sites we build?
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0