Pagination — SEO Library | Iftikhar Qureshi

Pagination

In short

Pagination splits long lists of content — blog archives, product categories, forum threads — across numbered pages (page 1, 2, 3…). Done right, it lets search engines reach every item without creating duplicate content problems.

Last reviewed October 18, 2026 · Iftikhar Qureshi

How Google handles paginated pages#

Google stopped using rel="prev"/rel="next" as an indexing signal in 2019. Today each paginated page is treated as a normal page. What matters is that Googlebot can follow plain links from page to page and reach every item.

Best practices#

Use real <a href> links for page numbers (e.g. /blog/page/2/).
Give each page a self-referencing canonical — don’t canonicalise page 2+ to page 1, because they list different items.
Keep paginated pages indexable unless you have a strong reason not to.
Link important items from elsewhere too (categories, hubs, related posts) so they’re not only reachable from page 37.
Consider a “view all” page for short lists if it loads fast.

Infinite scroll and “load more”#

Search engines don’t scroll or click buttons. If you use infinite scroll, make sure there are also paginated URLs with links that crawlers can follow, and update the URL as users scroll (the History API).

Titles on paginated pages#

Adding “– Page 2” to titles helps users and avoids duplicate-title warnings. WordPress SEO plugins and this theme handle paginated canonicals automatically.

Pagination

In short

Last reviewed October 18, 2026 · Iftikhar Qureshi

Best practices#

Use real <a href> links for page numbers (e.g. /blog/page/2/).

Give each page a self-referencing canonical — don’t canonicalise page 2+ to page 1, because they list different items.

Keep paginated pages indexable unless you have a strong reason not to.

Link important items from elsewhere too (categories, hubs, related posts) so they’re not only reachable from page 37.

Consider a “view all” page for short lists if it loads fast.