What is pagination?
Pagination splits large amounts of content (such as a product catalog or list of articles) across multiple pages with “next/previous” navigation. It is usually implemented with URLs that include a page number:
/category/?page=2/blog/page/3//catalog/phones/?p=4
SEO issues with pagination
Pagination creates several SEO challenges:
1. Duplicate meta tags
Pages 1, 2, and 3 of a catalog may have the same title and description.
2. Dilution of link equity
External links point to /category/ (page 1), rather than to /category/?page=2 with the same content.
3. Crawl budget
Crawling hundreds of paginated pages uses crawl budget on “less important” pages.
Google's recommended approach (2019+)
Google discontinued support for rel="prev"/"next" in 2019. Current recommendations:
Canonical on each page
Each paginated page should specify a canonical URL pointing to itself (not to the first page):
<!-- На /category/?page=1 -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/category/">
<!-- На /category/?page=2 -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/category/?page=2">
<!-- На /category/?page=3 -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/category/?page=3">Page 1 without a parameter
The first page should be accessible without ?page=1:
# Правильно:
/category/ ← страница 1
/category/?page=2
/category/?page=3
# Неправильно:
/category/?page=1 ← избыточный параметр
Infinite scroll vs. pagination
| Aspect | Pagination | Infinite scroll |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Better (separate URLs) | Worse (content on one URL) |
| UX | Worse (clicks) | Better (smooth scrolling) |
| Indexing | Complete (if pages are linked) | Partial |
A compromise: a “Load More” button is an intermediate option.
Pagination in the sitemap
Whether to include paginated pages in the sitemap is debatable. Guidelines:
<!-- Включить если страницы имеют уникальный контент -->
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/catalog/?page=2</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
</url>
<!-- Не включать если контент дублируется или малоценен -->Check links with reChecker
Use Broken links to check that pagination links on your website work. The tool will detect broken links to “Next” pages that may break navigation.
FAQ
Should pagination be blocked with noindex? No. Paginated pages can be indexed—they often rank for long-tail queries. Use noindex only if the pages have no SEO value (technical paginated search pages with parameters).
How should faceted search be handled? Faceted search (filters) generates a huge number of URLs. Recommended options: use a canonical pointing to the base category URL and render with JavaScript without changing the URL, or use noindex for pages with filters.
Is hreflang needed for paginated pages on a multilingual website? Yes. Each paginated page should have the appropriate hreflang tags pointing to its language equivalents.