My presentation at SMX West 2012. Gettin' Jiggy Wit It - the Ultimate Guide to Pagination for SEO Covers: - rel next / prev - rel canonical - meta robots noindex - view all pages - and more! Shows how to deal with different scenarios and makes recommendations for each situation.

1. The Ultimate Guide to
Pagination for SEO
SMX West 2012
> Adam Audette
> @audette
President, RKG
www.rimmkaufman.com

2. Pagination: Gettin’ Jiggy With It
2

3. 3 Ways to Get Jiggy
> Classic SEO Pagination technique
 Page 1 is canonical
 Component pages noindex
> View All technique
 Elegant
 Hard to get implemented
> The “Fresh” method
 rel next / prev
 Assorted other signals

4. Classic Pagination Method
> Primary Goals
 Surface only page 1 in results (the canonical)
 Control inbound SEO experience (as much as possible)
 Items/products on component pages get crawled

5. Secondary goal: get jiggy

6. Classic Pagination Requirements
Annotations:
• pages 2-N annotated with
noindex, follow
pp. 2-N • pages 2-N self-referencing rel
canonical
• pages 2-N contain unique
titles, URLs, and meta data

7. Classic Pagination Method
p. 1
Fresh
Prince
pp. 2 pp. 3 pp. 4
• Hi-top • Bel-Air • One-
fade strap
overall

8. Classic Pagination Method
p. 1
pp. 2-N

9. Classic Pagination Method
> Results
 Page 1 is displayed as the ranking URL in results
 Component pages get crawled; but equity is not directly passed
to canonical
 Component pages in series get crawled but not
indexed, therefore don’t compete with page 1

10. Result? Pretty jiggy!

11. View All Pagination Tactic
> Goals
 Surface only the View All page in results
 Consolidate scoring signals to View All

12. View All Pagination Requirements
Annotations:
• pages 2-N specify View All as rel
View All canonical target
• View All page must load fast
• View All contains all data in the
series
pp. 2-N

13. View All Pagination Tactic
View All
pp. 2-N

14. View All Pagination Tactic
> Results
 View All is displayed as the ranking URL in results
 Component pages transfer scoring signals to View All
 High-quality View All pages (if fast) can perform well

15. Result? Nerdier Than Carlton

16. Side Note: View Alls
> Challenges
 View All pages must be fast (≤ 3 seconds to load)
 Big sites (esp. ecomm) sometimes dislike them (see above)
 … but users love them! (if they’re fast)

19. “Fresh” Pagination Tactic
> Goals
 Surface only page 1 in results (the canonical)
 Control inbound SEO experience (as much as possible)
 Consolidate scoring signals to canonical

20. Secondary goal: even more jiggy

21. “Fresh” Pagination Requirements
Annotations:
• Pages 2-N annotated with rel
next, prev
pp. 2-N • pages 2-N self-referencing rel
canonical
• pages 2-N contain unique
titles, URLs, and meta data
• (Optional) pages 2-N annotated
with noindex, follow

22. “Fresh” Pagination Tactic
p. 1
pp. 2-N
[ rel prev / next ]

23. Result? Jiggy’est of all

24. “Fresh” Pagination Tactic
> Results
 Page 1 is displayed as the ranking URL in results
 Rel prev / next consolidate signals across the series
 rel canonical (self-referencing only) pulls any URL dupes
 (Optional) noindex, follow pulls component pages from results

25. Side Note on Gettin’ Fresh
> Important to keep in mind
 Pages with rel next/prev can still be shown in results
 But this is an extreme “edge case”
 Can optionally use noindex
 Use of rel next/prev consolidates signals across the entire series

26. Another Side Note
> Big innovations at Google Search Quality?
 rel next/prev is a “…strong hint for Google to identify the series of
pages and still surface a component page in results.”
 Note rel=alternate hreflang=x
 Google uses these new tools to consolidate signals and still
make decisions about surfacing URLs in search results at
search time

27. Recommendations
> When you have a great View All
 Add rel canonical targets to the View All on all component pages
in a series
 Ensure the View All contains all the data found on the component
pages
 Ensure the View All loads in at least 3 seconds
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28. Recommendations
> When View All isn’t an option
 Use the rel prev/next method to consolidate signals across the
series
 Advantage over Classic method which relied on noindex to keep
out of index but get equity through the crawl
 Use self-referencing rel canonical
 (Optional) Use noindex
28

29. The Freshest!

30. Thank you!
Adam Audette
@audette
aaudette@rimmkaufman.com