Pagination, Canonical, Prev & Next

[Vitalized]

Hello All
I have a question about my Magento setup.  I have lots of categories which have many products so the categories paginate.  I've seen info about making sure the Canonical tag doesn't simply send Search Engines back to the first page meaning the paginated pages won't get indexed.  I've also seen info about using the rel=next & rel=prev to help Search Engines understand the category pages are paginated... Is it okay to use both?

I've made sure that: category/?p=1 has a canonical of category/ to make sure there isn't duplicate content.

Here's an example of category/?p=2 meta data:
http://website.com/category/?p=2" />
http://website.com/category/" />
http://website.com/category[/?p=3](http://pinkrocket.co.uk/girls-toys/jessica-rabbit-vibrators/?p=3)" />

[Davenport-Tractor]

Si,

Your concern about sending search engines back to the "Root" page is unfounded. Simply the search engines WILL index not only your category page but also your individual product pages.

So if you had a category, lets say "batteries" and that category had 100 different batteries, each category page having 10 of the different batteries. All 10 of the category pages should be Canonicalized to point to the first battery category page. That page is now receiving link juice from the lower 9 pages. But your 100 individual battery product page has its own link juice and they should NOT be directed back to the category page.

[Vitalized]

Hi Allen
Thanks for your reply. I don't think you understod the question though.

I know the product pages will get indexed. My questions is purely about Category pages.  If I had 10 paginated pages and they all had http://website.com/category/" /> then the 9 paginated pages won't get indexed (I've seen this on many ecommerce sites). Because the 9 other paginated pages on my site aren't duplicate content I won't them to get indexed as well.

There are some great articles out there you may want to read.  I just haven't seen any advice on using the methods I've ended up with.

http://moz.com/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questions
http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html
http://searchengineland.com/the-latest-greatest-on-seo-pagination-114284

[LynnPatchett]

Hi,

Google recommends using a rel=canonical to a 'view all' page OR prev/next pagination. That being said though, the setup you have now is unlikely to cause any issues, the pagination is correct and the canonical is pointing to the same page so no technical reason for confusion.

One thing to keep in mind is if you have any filters available on these pages (like sort by price for example). In this case the recommendation IS to use both rel canonical and prev/next pagination. The rel=canonical in this case would point back to the main unfiltered page's url and the prev/next links would point to the relevant pages with the filtering included. So something like:

Page is **category/?p=2&sortby=price and **meta data is:

[Dr-Pete]

While it can work that way, Google has explicitly stated that they do not want paginated search results to canonical back to page 1. They suggest either using rel=prev/next or using a canonical to a "View All" version.

Now, in practice, it's a bit more tricky, but most SEOs I know have moved away from canonical to page 1. If we don't canonical to "View All" or use rel=prev/next, the next most common approach is to META NOINDEX/FOLLOW pages 2+. Otherwise, Google may stop honoring your canonical tags, which can cause problems sitewide.