pagination
Pagination is the practice of splitting content across multiple pages, using rel="next" and rel="prev" links to signal the sequence.
Pagination is the practice of dividing content into multiple sequential pages. Common examples include blog archives split across pages, product listing pages, and search results. Paginated pages typically use rel="next" and rel="prev" link elements to indicate their position in the sequence.
How pagination affects SEO
Paginated pages create challenges for search engines:
- Crawl budget - Each paginated page requires a separate crawl, which can consume significant crawl budget on large sites
- Link equity distribution - Link equity must flow through the pagination chain, with deeper pages receiving less
- Content duplication - If paginated pages have identical titles and descriptions, they may trigger duplicate content flags
- Indexation decisions - Search engines must decide which paginated pages to index and which to skip
Best practices
- Use
rel="next"andrel="prev"to help search engines understand the page sequence - Set self-referencing canonical tags on each paginated page (do not canonicalize all pages to page 1)
- Give each paginated page a unique title, such as “Blog - Page 2”
- Ensure every paginated page is reachable through internal links
- Consider “view all” pages for content that can reasonably fit on a single page
- Keep pagination URL patterns clean and consistent
How crawler.sh helps
Run crawler crawl to detect pages with rel="next" and rel="prev" tags. The crawler seo command flags paginated pages so you can audit your pagination setup. Check that next/prev links point to valid URLs, canonical tags are self-referencing, and each page in the sequence is accessible.
