Pagination is used on a large number of websites. Ecommerce sites use it to display products on category pages, news and content sites use it to archive older content, and other types of websites, such as forums, also rely on it to show different topics across multiple pages.
When implementing pagination, there are two different aspects to keep in mind. On the one hand, you need to think about SEO and how Google and other search engines will handle that navigation. On the other, you should not forget about the user experience and how users themselves will interact with the pagination.
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Best practices for SEO pagination
When managing pagination correctly, the first thing to check is that the pagination links use the href attribute, so Googlebot can identify and follow them without any issues.
Another element that should not be missing is the canonical tag. Each paginated page should have a self-referencing canonical. Google treats paginated URLs as separate pages, so it is not recommended to canonicalize all of them to the first page of the series.
As for rel=”next” and rel=”prev” in the HTML , Google no longer uses them as a pagination signal. They can still be kept if they are useful for other search engines or for consistency, but they are no longer something to rely on for Google.
Treat paginated pages as normal pages
Google treats paginated URLs as regular pages, so elements such as the title tag should not be ignored.
For example, if the main category page is called “Category Y”, the next page could use something like “Category Y – Page 2”. This helps differentiate one paginated URL from another and makes it easier to signal which version is the main landing page.
The same idea can be applied to other page elements. The first page of the series can carry the strongest optimization signals, while the rest of the paginated pages remain fully crawlable and accessible.
The key is to understand that search engines treat these URLs as separate pages, so they need to be handled carefully rather than ignored.
Common pagination mistakes
Pagination often creates confusion, and there are several common mistakes that can cause problems not only for how Google handles the pagination itself, but also for how it discovers the content linked from it.
1. Canonicalizing all paginated pages to a view-all page
One possible approach is to create a page that includes all the articles or products in the category and set that page as canonical for all paginated URLs.
In theory, this can work in some cases. However, it also raises an obvious question: if all items can be loaded on a single page without harming performance or usability, there may be no real need for pagination in the first place.
On larger lists, this usually becomes impractical. A view-all page can become too heavy, hurt performance, and create a poor user experience. In those situations, it is generally more reasonable to treat each paginated URL as an individual page with its own self-referencing canonical.
2. Adding a noindex tag to paginated pages
A very common way to keep paginated URLs out of Google’s index is to add a noindex tag.
This may achieve that goal, but it can also reduce how often Google revisits those pages over time. If pagination is the only path Google has to reach certain products or articles, that can make discovery and crawling of deeper content more difficult.
That is why this approach needs to be used with care. Google does recommend using noindex for filtered or alternative sort URLs that should not be indexed, but standard pagination is a different case when those pages are needed for crawl discovery.
3. Letting Google handle pagination without clear signals
Google is increasingly capable of understanding websites on its own, and that also applies to pagination.
Even so, it is still a mistake to assume that Google will always interpret the setup exactly as you want. In practice, paginated URLs can sometimes rank above the main category page if the signals are not clear enough.
For that reason, it is better to work on paginated pages deliberately, giving search engines enough signals to understand that they are part of a sequence and making it easier for the preferred landing page to stand out.
4. Canonicalizing all paginated URLs to the first page
Another very common mistake is to place a canonical tag on every paginated page pointing to page 1, hoping Google will always select that first page as the main version.
This will cause something similar to point 2. Googlebot will not index the paginations and over time will stop visiting them and, therefore, will not access the content linked from them, which will eventually be deindexed as well.
Furthermore, the canonical tag is used to manage similar content, and pagination is not, since its content is (or should be) different.
5. Blocking paginated URLs in robots.txt
Using the robots.txt file to block pagination is another common mistake.
If those URLs are blocked from crawling, search engines may have trouble reaching the products, articles, or listings linked from them. Over time, that can weaken the discovery of deeper content.
Blocking crawl can make sense for low-value URL patterns such as filters or alternative sort orders, but it is usually not the best solution for standard pagination when those pages are part of the normal navigation structure.
6. Poorly implemented infinite scroll
Infinite scroll has become a popular way to handle long lists of content, especially because it can improve the user experience.
The problem comes when it is not implemented in a search-friendly way. If new content loads only through JavaScript as the user scrolls, search engines may not discover all of it properly.
To avoid that, each chunk of content should still be reachable through a unique URL, and the site should include crawlable links with href attributes pointing to the next page. Google also recommends avoiding fragment-based pagination such as #page=2, since URL fragments are ignored for crawling purposes.
In short, pagination plays an important role in user experience, but it also needs to be implemented with SEO in mind. Search engines need to be able to understand the relationship between paginated URLs and continue crawling the content linked from them. When pagination is handled properly, both users and crawlers can navigate the site more effectively.
