SMX Advanced: Thriving in the New World of Pagination

@lilyraynyc
Lily Ray
Director, SEO

@lilyraynyc
I’m not going to
think about
SEO for 4 days.
March 21, 2019

@lilyraynyc
Then this happened.

@lilyraynyc
LET’S TALK ABOUT
PAGINATION

@lilyraynyc
What is Pagination Used For?
• Ecommerce category pages
• Blogs (lists of articles)
• Reviews
• Breaking up articles into sections

@lilyraynyc
A History of Rel = Prev/Next
<link rel="next"
href="http://www.website.com/
article?page=2" />
<link rel="prev"
href="http://www.example.com/a
rticle?page=1" />
<link rel="next"
rticle?page=3" />
<link rel="prev"
rticle?page=2" />
<link rel="next"
rticle?page=4" />
page 1 page 2 page 3

@lilyraynyc
“Rel prev / next consolidates indexing
properties, such as links, from the component
pages/URLs to the series as a whole, and
sends users to the most relevant URL.”

@lilyraynyc
Add that one to the Google
graveyard…

@lilyraynyc
So, what should
we do now?

@lilyraynyc
Option 1: Do Nothing
• Other search engines still use rel prev/next
tags
• Used for web accessibility & ADA
compliance
• Recommended byW3C
• Bonus: avoids undoing something you
probably just implemented!

@lilyraynyc
How it Works
• Split up content among multiple pages
• Each page in series has a self-
referencing canonical tag
• Important:
• Do not canonicalize deeper pages
to page 1 of series
• Do not add noindex tags to
important paginated URLs
• Do not block paginated URLs using
robots.txt Credit: John Dietrich & Eric Enge, StoneTemple / Perficient Digital
“PaginationCanonicalization & SEO:YourTechnical Guide”

@lilyraynyc
Adding More Links to Paginated URLs
This implementation can create excessive crawl depth
More links to pagination reduces crawl depth
1 2 3 101 200
Mid-point links can further improve crawlability
for very large series of paginated URLs

@lilyraynyc
Portent Study on Pagination
Source:
Matthew Henry, Portent
https://bit.ly/2qQWIWm

@lilyraynyc
Option 2: Single-Page Content

@lilyraynyc
Implementation
• Create a “view all page”
• Display all products or articles on this one page
• Make this page canonical
• If pagination is still in effect, canonicalize
paginated URLs to “view all” page

@lilyraynyc
Pros: Cons:
• Increases ability to rank for relevant
keywords on one page
• Easy to manage
• Less bloat in search engine indexes
View All Page:
• Can slow down the page
• Tip: implement lazy loading
• Can impact UX
• Tip: consider adding jumplinks and/or
AJAX enabled faceted navigation

@lilyraynyc
Option 3: Infinite Scroll or “Load More” Buttons + Pagination
Load More

@lilyraynyc
2019 Deepcrawl Study (by Adam Gent)::
Credit: Adam Gent, Deepcrawl
“The State of theWeb: Search Friendly Pagination and Infinite Scroll”
• Analyzed pagination setup on 150 sites fromAlexa 500
• 65% of sites had pagination implementation set up
incorrectly for SEO
• Issues largely stemmed from infinite scroll & load
more buttons

@lilyraynyc
Getting Implementation Right
• For infinite scroll or load more buttons: make
sure paginated URLs have unique URLs (static
or dynamic both work)
• Leverage history API to change URLs if needed
• Mandatory: include crawlable <a href> links to
paginated URLs!
• Do not rely on JavaScript (scrolling, onclick
events) to load paginated components
Two examples:
https://bit.ly/2YmBv2E
https://bit.ly/2Q1LUxQ

@lilyraynyc
History API causes URL to change as user scrolls
https://bit.ly/2Q1LUxQ
Codex Example
Infinite scroll in effect
Sticky <a href> links to paginated URLs

@lilyraynyc
Load More Buttons
1. Check the page source & DOM to make sure “load more” buttons contain links to
paginated URLs
2. Make sure links to these URLs are <a href> and not JavaScript events

@lilyraynyc
Problem: Infinite scroll without <a href> links to paginated URLs
Case Study 1: Large E-Commerce Brand
60.4 million URLs are crawled 234 million times in 90 days.
Paginated URLs Only Full Website
228 paginated URLs crawled 600 times in 90 days.
Thousands of paginated URLs are not crawled at all.

@lilyraynyc
Case Study 2: Large E-Commerce Brand
Problem: Pagination implemented correctly, but only 1 paginated link offered per
page in the series (“next page.”)
Solution: Added links to pages 1-10 from first page.
Results: 7% increase in traffic period-over-period and 34% YOY. Improvement in
crawl stats:
Only paginated URLS:
Crawl rate improved by 21.5% and
depth declined by 74.5%
All website URLs:
Crawl rate improved by 14.6% and
depth declined by 34.2%

@lilyraynyc
Share these #SMXInsights on your social channels!
1. Pick the right method of pagination for your
website’s unique needs

@lilyraynyc
2. Don’t noindex (important) paginated URLs or
block them from being crawled

@lilyraynyc
2. Don’t noindex (important) paginated URLs or
block them from being crawled
3. Include <a href> links to paginated URLs and
try to link to multiple pages in the series

SMX Advanced: Thriving in the New World of Pagination

In this document