Agent Wranglers

SEO-14Recommended

Give paginated lists their own addresses

Give every page of a long list its own URL, linked with plain <a href> links. Each page carries a canonical to itself, never to page one.

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

How to do it

Use a query parameter or path, such as ?page=2. Link each page to the next and previous ones. Google no longer reads rel="next" and rel="prev", so the plain links do the work. Infinite scroll and "Load more" buttons must also update the address and keep those links in the HTML. Keep every canonical consistent, as Make every canonical signal agree says.

Examples

HTML example

<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/shoes?page=2">
<nav aria-label="Pages">
  <a href="/shoes">Previous</a>
  <a href="/shoes?page=3">Next</a>
</nav>

How to check

A crawler following only <a href> reaches the last page of every list. Each page's canonical equals its own URL.

Sources

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/seo/site-structure/pagination">Agent Wranglers SEO playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.