Rel=Alternate on Paginated Pages

[eventurerob]

I've a question about setting up the rel=alternate & rel=canonical tags between desktop and a dedicated mobile site in specific regards to paginated pages.

On the desktop and mobile site, all paginated pages have the rel=canonical set towards a single URL as per usual.

On the desktop site though, should the rel=alternate be to the relevant paginated page on the mobile site (ie a different rel=alternate on every paginated page) or to a single URL just as it is vice versa.

Cheers chaps.

[DirkC]

Hi,

It's not always best practice to use a canonical url for paginated pages - according to Google:

"In cases of paginated content, we recommend either a rel=canonical from component pages to a single-page version of the article, or to use rel=”prev” and rel=”next” pagination markup."

Again from Google:

"When using rel=”alternate” and rel=”canonical” markup, maintain a 1-to-1 ratio between the mobile page and the corresponding desktop page. In particular, avoid annotating many desktop pages referring to a single mobile page (or vice versa)."

If you would decide to stick to the canonical for the pagination your desktop site would have a config like this:

http://www.example.com/article.htm&page=2

href="http://m.example.com/article.htm&page=2" >

On the mobile version m.example.com/article.htm&page=2 this would become:

This way you keep the 1-1 between mobile & still indicate to google that page=2 should not be indexed but rather the 1st page. It's quite possible that

could also work, but the other option seems to be more in line with the guidelines

Hope this helps;

Dirk

[eventurerob]

Hey Dirk

I think that's the crux eh - keeping the 1 to 1 ratio. Makes it a bloody cinch to do too.

Still doesn't quite sit right somehow to have canonicals on top of canonicials mind you but sod it - works for me.

Cheers Dirk.

Alex.