Pagination SEO: Best Practices & How to Implement

Pagination SEO is about ensuring your multi-page content doesn’t impact search visibility.

If you’ve got blog archives, product listings, or forums that span across pages, you’re working with paginated content. Done right, it helps both users and search engines (or crawlers). 

Done wrong, it leads to duplicate content, crawl waste, and ranking issues.

This blog covers exactly what pagination in SEO is, how Google handles it today, and what you should do to avoid common mistakes. From choosing the proper URL structure to setting up canonical tags and internal links, we’ll break down everything you need to implement SEO-friendly pagination.

What is pagination in SEO?

Pagination in SEO is the practice of dividing content across multiple pages with sequential navigation. It’s commonly used when you have too much content to display on a single page, such as:

• Product category pages on e-commerce sites. 
• Blog archives and category pages.
• Forum threads with multiple responses.
• Search results with numerous listings.
• Image galleries with many photos.

From a user perspective, pagination makes content more digestible by breaking it into manageable chunks. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of products or posts, users can navigate through numbered pages, typically displayed at the bottom or top of the content.

For example, if you search for “Men’s Shoes” on an e-commerce website like Amazon, you may come across 200 products. 

Rather than displaying all 200 on one page (which would be slow to load and overwhelming to navigate), you’ll get 20 products per page, creating a series of 10 paginated pages. 

Here’s an example of paginated pages from Amazon:

How pagination SEO affects your website’s performance

Pagination SEO impacts your website in several critical ways, affecting everything from crawling and indexing to user experience and conversion rates. Here’s how:

1. Crawl budget and efficiency

Search engines allocate a limited “crawl budget” to each website—the number of pages they’ll crawl during each visit. With paginated content, you’re asking search engines to crawl multiple pages that may contain similar elements (like headers, footers, and navigation). 

This means that if your website pagination isn’t implemented correctly, search engines might waste valuable crawl budget on redundant content or miss important pages entirely.

When done correctly, pagination SEO can significantly improve your site’s crawlability and indexability by helping search engines understand the relationship between paginated pages and prioritize their crawling efforts.

2. Duplicate content concerns

Paginated pages often contain overlapping content—the same header, footer, navigation, and sometimes even product descriptions or article snippets. 

Without proper SEO implementation, search engines might view these pages as duplicate content, which can dilute your ranking potential and even lead to penalties in extreme cases.

3. User experience and engagement

Beyond search engines, pagination directly affects how users interact with your site. Poor pagination implementation can lead to:

• Frustration when navigating between pages.
• Difficulty finding specific content.
• Increased bounce rates.
• Lower time spent on site.
• Reduced conversion rates.

Conversely, well-implemented pagination improves user experience by making content more accessible and navigation more intuitive, which indirectly benefits your SEO through improved engagement metrics.

4. Link equity distribution

Each paginated page typically links to other pages in the sequence. 

These internal links distribute link equity (ranking power) throughout your site. With proper pagination SEO, you can ensure this link equity flows efficiently, boosting the ranking potential of your most important pages.

5. Mobile optimization

With mobile-first indexing, how pagination works on mobile devices directly impacts your SEO. Pagination that works well on desktop but breaks on mobile can seriously harm your search visibility.

Google’s current stance on pagination

In 2019, Google announced that it no longer uses the rel=“prev” and rel=“next” link attributes as indexing signals. 

Previously, these HTML tags were the recommended way to indicate the relationship between pages in a paginated series:

Currently, Google treats each page in a paginated sequence as an independent entity worthy of its own ranking consideration. 

Unlike earlier approaches where paginated content was consolidated, Google now indexes individual paginated pages separately, based on their quality and relevance.

This means that your website’s blog page 2 might rank for certain queries if it contains valuable content, regardless of its position in the sequence. Google’s algorithms determine which pages in a paginated series deserve indexing based on their own merits.

The absence of official pagination markup doesn’t mean Google can’t recognize pagination patterns. 

Their crawlers are sophisticated enough to identify common pagination structures without special markup. Google now relies on your site’s internal linking structure and page context to understand pagination relationships.

In place of explicit pagination markup, Google recommends focusing on these core elements:

• Create unique, valuable content on each paginated page.
• Implement a clean, crawlable URL structure.
• Use proper internal linking between paginated pages.
• Apply canonical tags appropriately to manage duplicate content.
• Ensure mobile-friendliness across all paginated pages.
• Optimize page speed for all pages in the sequence.

Notably, Google has shifted toward valuing user experience signals more heavily. 

Page speed, mobile-friendliness, and engagement metrics have become increasingly important for paginated pages. This approach aligns with Google’s broader focus on page experience signals as ranking factors.

💡You might also like: Does AI Content Rank in Google? A Comprehensive Report

SEO pagination best practices for effective implementation 

Implementing pagination correctly forms the backbone of a solid technical SEO strategy. With Google now treating paginated pages as individual entities, following these best practices becomes crucial for maintaining search visibility.

1. Use recommended URL structures for paginated pages

Creating proper URLs for paginated pages is essential for effective pagination SEO. The structure you choose affects both user experience and search engine crawlability.

Two main URL structures work well for pagination:

• Query parameters (recommended):

example.com/products?page=2

example.com/products?page=3

• Directory structure:

example.com/products/page/2

example.com/products/page/3

While both formats work effectively, Google specifically recommends using query parameters for pagination because they’re easier to track in Google Search Console. 

Research suggests that Googlebot guesses URL patterns more accurately with parameter-based URLs, increasing the chances of quick discovery.

Remember to always keep consistency across your site. Pick one URL structure and use it everywhere. Mixing formats confuses both users and search engines. 

For example, avoid using: 

example.com/products?page=2 alongside example.com/products/page-3.

Use hyphens rather than underscores to separate words in URLs. Google treats hyphens as word separators, while underscores are considered part of words. 

Example: product-category is more search-friendly than product category.

Never use URL fragment identifiers (the # symbol) for pagination. Search engines typically ignore fragments because they point to specific sections on a page, not unique content. 

For instance, example.com/category/#page2 would be completely ineffective for pagination SEO.

If your paginated series includes sorting or filtering options, use proper parameter syntax:

• Use an equal sign (=) to separate key-value pairs
• Add additional parameters with an ampersand (&)
• List multiple values for the same key with a comma (,)

Example: example.com/products?page=2&sort=price-low-to-high&color=red,blue

Ensure that non-existent paginated pages return a proper 404 status code. 

If your product category has only four pages, trying to access page 5 should trigger a 404 response; otherwise, you risk creating crawl traps that waste valuable crawl budget.

2. Canonicalizing each page

When implemented correctly, canonical pagination prevents duplicate content issues and ensures that your paginated sequence is properly indexed.

For standard pagination implementation, each page in the sequence should use a self-referencing canonical tag that points to itself. This approach tells search engines that every paginated page represents unique content.

Example for page one:

Example for page two:

This self-canonicalization helps search engines understand your site structure without introducing duplicate content concerns. 

The “View All” strategy is another approach. Here, you create a single page displaying all content and point canonical tags from paginated pages to this comprehensive page:

However, this approach is only recommended if the “view all” page truly provides a good user experience and doesn’t have performance issues.

What to avoid:

• Canonicalizing all pages to page 1: This prevents other pages from being indexed.
• No canonical tags at all: This can lead to duplicate content issues.
• Inconsistent canonical implementation: This confuses search engines.

One of the most common mistakes in pagination implementation is setting up the canonical tag pagination incorrectly, so take extra care with this aspect of your implementation.

3. Internal linking strategies for paginated sequences

Internal linking between paginated pages forms the backbone of a solid technical SEO strategy. When done right, these links improve both user navigation and search engine understanding of your content relationships.

Pagination naturally creates a structured linking pathway. 

Each paginated page automatically connects to others in the sequence, forming a built-in linking architecture. On an e-commerce site with paginated product listings, this typically works as:

• Page 1 links to Page 2
• Page 2 links to both Page 1 and Page 3
• Page 3 links back to Page 2, and so on

This sequence helps distribute link equity throughout your site. 

Pages with higher authority pass value to connected pages, boosting their ranking potential. Properly structured pagination links also give crawlers clear paths to discover content deeper in your site.

Here are some more pagination best practices for internal linking:

• Use meaningful anchor text: Don’t just write “Next” or “Previous.” Instead, add keywords that describe the content on the next page.
  • Example: <a href=”/shoes?page=2″>Next Page: Men’s Running Shoes (Page 2)</a>
    
• Keep pagination links minimal: Avoid cluttering the page with too many numbered links. Show only the first few pages, the last few, and a few near the current page.
  • Example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 23, 24, 25
    
• Offer a “View All” option (if possible): If your site can handle it, give users the option to see everything on one page. It’s helpful for those who want to scroll through all content without clicking.

4. Understanding when to index vs. noindex

For pagination, you need to understand these key directives:

The “index” directive (which is the default behavior) tells search engines to include the page in search results. However, applying this to all paginated pages can cause indexation bloat. 

The “noindex” directive prevents the page from appearing in search results while still allowing crawlers to follow links if paired with “follow.”

Some SEO professionals apply different directives based on position in the pagination sequence:

This approach might be appropriate for:

• Paginated pages with very thin content.
• Pages deep in the pagination sequence that rarely receive organic traffic.
• Filtered or faceted navigation pages that create excessive pagination.

However, be cautious with this approach. 

If you use “noindex,” search engines will still follow the links on the page but won’t include the page in search results. This can be useful for controlling which pages appear in search results while still allowing link equity to flow through your site.

What to avoid:

• Blocking pagination in robots.txt: This prevents crawling entirely, which can orphan content
• Using both noindex and canonical tags: This sends conflicting signals to search engines
• Inconsistent implementation: Applying different directives to similar paginated pages

5. Tackling duplicate content in paginated SEO

Paginated pages often contain similar elements, which can create duplicate content concerns. Here’s how to address this:

• Create content with unique page value: Ensure each paginated page offers something different. Examples:
  • New product listings on each e-commerce page.
  • Different blog posts on archive pages.
  • Separate comments or threads in forums.
    
• Use clear heading structure: Maintain a proper hierarchy to show what’s different on each page. Example:
  <h1>Men’s Shoes</h1>
  <h2>Page 2: Running Shoes</h2>

• Write unique meta titles and descriptions: Don’t reuse the same metadata. Tailor it to reflect what’s on that specific page. Example: Page 1: Men’s Shoes | Brand Name
  Page 2: Men’s Running Shoes (Page 2) | Brand Name
  
• Add dynamic content blocks: Include custom elements on each page to boost relevance and user experience. Examples:
  • Intro text specific to that page
  • Featured products or articles
  • Custom filters or sort options
    

When implementing SEO for paginated pages, consider both technical implementation and user experience to ensure your content provides unique value while maintaining a cohesive user journey.

Types of pagination implementation and impact 

Choosing the right pagination method plays a big role in how users navigate your site and how easily search engines can crawl it. Each approach comes with its own set of SEO pros and cons.

Here are the different types of pagination methods you can use depending on your website:

1. Standard numbered pagination

This is the most traditional approach, where users click through numbered links (e.g., 1, 2, 3…).

SEO impact:

• Easily crawlable by search engines when implemented with proper rel=”next” and rel=”prev” tags (though Google has deprioritized them, they’re still good for structure).
• Helps distribute link equity across multiple pages.
• May dilute keyword relevance and indexing efficiency if content is too thin or duplicated across pages.

2. Infinite scroll

Content continues to load automatically as users scroll down the page, creating a seamless experience.

SEO impact:

• Often problematic unless paired with proper progressive enhancement (i.e., unique URLs, server-side rendered content, or fallback pagination).
  
• Search engines may struggle to access deeper content unless explicit crawl paths are provided.
  
• Requires significant JavaScript SEO consideration, especially for mobile-first indexing.
  

3. “Load more” button

Combines the UX benefits of infinite scroll with better control where users click to load more items on the same page.

SEO impact:

• Offers a cleaner interface while retaining some crawlability if implemented with dynamic URLs or prerendered content.
  
• Deeper content may remain hidden from crawlers without server-side rendering or JavaScript SEO fixes.
  
• Good balance for content-heavy pages if paired with canonicalization strategies.
  

4. “View all” pages

Consolidates all paginated content into a single, scrollable page.

SEO impact:

• Strongest option for SEO if the page remains fast and mobile-friendly—search engines get everything at once.
  
• Can reduce crawl depth and improve content indexing.
  
• Downsides include potential performance issues, high bounce rates, and poor UX on slower connections.
  

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for pagination options. E-commerce sites often benefit from numbered pagination, while editorial content may work better with “load more” or “view all” buttons. 

The key is to align with both user behavior and best practices for SEO friendly pagination. 

How to audit your pagination with Writesonic’s Site Audit tool

If your site’s pagination is hurting crawlability or user experience, Writesonic’s Site Audit tool can spot the issues before they affect rankings.

Start by scanning your site through the Site Audit dashboard, which gives you a real-time health score based on technical SEO, content quality, and performance. 

Once your audit runs, head straight to the Content Issues and Indexable Issues tabs—these are the goldmines for pagination errors.

Look out for signals like:

• Low word count or readability difficulty on paginated pages, which could mean thin content
  
• Missing H1 tags or duplicate meta tags, which confuse both users and crawlers
  
• Pages with high external outlinks and missing internal links, indicating broken content flow across pages

You’ll also find valuable insights under Technical SEO, where issues like low text-to-HTML ratios or uncompressed JavaScript and CSS can hint at bloated, paginated pages that slow down crawl efficiency.

And here’s the best part—if you find meta issues like missing descriptions or weak anchor texts in your paginated links, the tool offers instant AI-powered fixes right within the platform.

Pagination mistakes often go unnoticed, silently dragging down your SEO. Writesonic’s Site Audit brings those issues into focus, so you can fix what matters faster.

👉 Run your site audit with Writesonic and make sure your pagination isn’t costing you rankings.

FAQs

1. Is pagination bad for SEO?

No, pagination is not bad for SEO when implemented correctly. Poor pagination can lead to crawl inefficiency, duplicate content, and lost link equity. 

But with proper internal linking, canonical tags, and crawlable URLs, paginated content can perform well in search and improve user experience.

2. How to fix pagination in SEO?

To fix pagination SEO issues, start by using clean, crawlable URLs (like ?page=2), self-referencing canonical tags, and meaningful anchor text for navigation links. 

Avoid duplicate metadata, block-level fragments (#page2), and inconsistent URL structures. Use tools like Writesonic’s Site Audit to spot thin content or linking gaps across paginated pages.

3. Is pagination outdated?

Pagination is not outdated, but the way Google handles it has changed. 

Google no longer uses rel=”prev” and rel=”next” signals. Each paginated page is now treated as a standalone URL, so it’s essential to optimize them individually with proper content, internal links, and metadata.

4. What are common SEO issues caused by poor pagination?

Poor pagination can cause several SEO issues, including duplicate content, crawl budget waste, broken internal links, inconsistent canonicals, and thin content. 

These problems reduce visibility in search and weaken the overall site structure. A proper pagination strategy ensures better indexation and rankings.

Saloni Kohli

Content Strategist

Saloni Kohli is a Content Strategist with over four years’ experience in B2B SaaS content marketing and SEO. She has shaped and executed end-to-end content strategies—ranging from editorial planning and long-form thought leadership to conversion-focused landing pages and email campaigns. At Writesonic, Saloni combines creativity with data-driven insights to elevate brand voice, drive organic growth, and maximize audience engagement.