Is this the correct way of using rel canonical, next and prev for paginated content?

[fablau]

Hello Moz fellows,

a while ago (3-4 years ago) we setup our e-commerce website category pages to apply what Google suggested to correctly handle pagination.

We added rel "canonicals", rel "next" and "prev" as follows:

On page 1:

On page 2:

On page 3:

And so on, until the last page is reached:

Do you think everything we have been doing is correct?

I have doubts on the way we have handled the canonical tag, so, any help to confirm that is very appreciated!

Thank you in advance to everyone.

[LoganRay]

Hi,

You don't need the self-referring canonical tags on each of the paginated URLs.  Other than that it looks good to go.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I'm with Logan here, Fabrizio. Rel next & prev pagination removes the need to canonical as well. So it would look like this:

Page 1:

Page 2:

Page 3:

It's Google way of understanding that there are similar pages that you wish to lead visitors to.

-Andy

[fablau]

Oh, thank you Andy and Logan! So, can I remove the canonical tag altogether?

Thank you so much!

All the best,

Fabrizio

[fablau]

Sorry, it is my understanding I have to leave the canonical just on the first page, is that correct?

Thank you again.

[fablau]

Another question: what about links on those pages that can take the crawl to possible duplicate because of parameters added to the URL like:

http://www.mysite.com/category/?cp=4&orderby=title

http://www.mysite.com/category/?cp=4&orderby=title&view=list

etc.? That's probably why we added the canonical I talked about above.... your thoughts?

[fablau]

I am sorry, but I haven't received an answer to my last inquiry above, I can't close this thread.

[LoganRay]

Yes, you only need the canonical tag on the root (as a self-referring canonical) and on page=1 of your paginated URLs. Regarding your recent question about links, a self-referring canonical on those pages will handle that.

Example:

On this URL- http://www.mysite.com/category/?cp=4&orderby=title&view=list

Canonicalize to- http://www.mysite.com/category/

Hope that's helpful!

[fablau]

Thank you Logan.

So, even if I am on page 4, the canonical must points always to the root? I think I read somewhere that it should point to the page URL without the extra parameters like this:

http://www.mysite.com/category/?cp=4

Am I wrong?

[LoganRay]

No, you do not need a canonical on any page other than page=1. Refer to Andy's set of examples above. What he laid out is exactly how I markup for pagination.

[fablau]

Thank you for your reply, but I am sorry Logan,  I am confused, you said:

Regarding your recent question about links, a self-referring canonical on those pages will handle that.

So, if I had to follow what you said above, I should add the following canonicals on these pages:

Page 1:

http://www.mysite.com/category/

Page 2:

http://www.mysite.com/category/?cp=2

Page 3:

http://www.mysite.com/category/?cp=3

But then you said that I don't have to put any canonicals except for the first page... so, I am confused... sorry!

Fact is, all pages may have extra parameters that could cause duplicates, therefore, how can I tackle that without adding a canonical on each page pointing to the "clean" URL without extra parameters? I hope you understand what I mean...

[ThompsonPaul]

You want to have each of your paginated category pages include a self-referential canonical tag, Fabrizo, for exactly the reason you mention - to protect the paginated pages from additional variables creating more dupe indexed pages.

Paul

[fablau]

Thank you Paul, so, what I have been doing so far is correct, right? Here it is again, please, confirm so I can close this thread:

On page 1:

On page 2:

On page 3:

And so on, until the last page is reached:

Is this the correct way to do it then?

[ThompsonPaul]

Yup, that's exactly correct - just the way you first proposed.

And if you want it straight from the horse's mouth, here's Google's own description of implementation best practice for your exact situation:

rel="next" and rel="previous" on the one hand and rel="canonical" on the other constitute independent concepts.Both declarations can be included in the same page.

For example, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=2&sessionid=123 may contain:

Note the canonical for the page is self referential to the version of the page including the basic variable that defines the actual page, leaving out the more dynamic variable of sessionID - the same way you'd want to leave out the dynamic size or colour variables, for example, which are specific to only that visit.

From https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
With a big whack of followup confirmation in this discussion with Google Engineer Maile Ohye https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/YbXqwoyooGM/0XTh-gIxS7YJ

Don't forget you can also use the tools in GSC to help GoogleBot understand which of your URL variables are indexable and which should be ignored. Only helps Google itself, but hey, every little bit counts

Good luck!

Paul

[fablau]

Fantastic, thank you Paul! Those links are very useful, and I might have already read those when I setup those canonicals (I jut forgot after a few years to have worked on that!)

I'll check them out carefully again

Appreciated your help and prompt reply

All the best,

Fabrizio