BrightonSEO April 2019 - I attended Adam Gent's presentation, in which he presented pagination best practices given Google's recent announcement of rel next/prev deprecation. After not being sure about what to do with our pagination, this talk came right on time, and drove us to act based on those best practices, as I believed (and still believe) that pagination is critical to get right by retailers & ecommerce businesses. By the time BrightonSEO 2020 arrives, it will be over a year since the announcement, and I'd like to review the UK retail ecommerce sector, to see how many did something about it, best practices, bad practices, ugly practices, and give some tips based on what we did at SilkFred including how that worked out for us. Download the full write up with embedded slides here: https://bit.ly/ecom-pagination

1. Thank U (Rel) Next –
State of Retail Pagination
1Y Later*
Orit Mutznik // SilkFred
SLIDESHARE.NET/OritMutznikSEO
@ORITSIMU

2. About me
• Heading SEO for SilkFred.com Since 2018
• In SEO since 2008
• Trilingual: 🇦🇷Hola 🇮🇱 ‫🇧🇬שלום‬Hello
• Search Author & Judge
• Focuses:
• eCommerce SEO
• Technical SEO
• International SEO
• Content Strategy
ex brands:
@oritsimu #brightonseo

3. About Today’s Talk
1. SilkFred Pagination Case Study
2. State of Pagination 2020 Research Findings
(Women’s Fashion, UK)
3. What’s Changed From March 2020 to Now?
(besides everything…)
4. Tips & Resources For Search Engine Friendly
Pagination

4. Grab my slides here so you don’t miss
a thing :)
bit.ly/ecom-pagination
(Real) Reviews:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐”It's awesome!” - John Mueller, Google
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐”Loved your talk” - Adam Gent, DeepCrawl
@oritsimu #brightonseo

5. Part I:
SilkFred Pagination Case
Study

6. About Me - As the 1st in-house SEO
Image credits: SilkFred.com @oritsimu #brightonseo
I had my work cut out for me

7. 69% Of Our Website Was Non-
Indexable
Products existing only in our pagination
Source: DeepCrawl,
SilkFred
@oritsimu #brightonseo
I got 99K problems and pagination is
one:

8. March 21, 2019: Rel Next Prev
Deprecation
Source: Twitter
@oritsimu #brightonseo

9. I took it well
Source: Giphy
@oritsimu #brightonseo

10. BrightonSEO, April 2019:
ME, Live slacking to the devs:
Source: Giphy
BrightonSEO April 2019, The State of SEO Friendly Pagination
(DeepCrawl, Adam Gent)
@oritsimu #brightonseo

11. Quick recap of Adam’s Findings:
@oritsimu #brightonseo
● Analysis of pagination practices for 150 Alexa top
500 sites
● 65% of the sites had set up non-SEO friendly
pagination
● Infinite scroll and load more were the search engine
“non-friendliest” options
● “Some sites lost 30 – 50% of their pages when
excluding paginated pages from being crawled”
(69% in my case)
BrightonSEO April 2019, The State of SEO Friendly Pagination
(DeepCrawl, Adam Gent)

12. Hey Google, what are we supposed
to do now?
Source: Giphy
@oritsimu #brightonseo
It’s been 18 months since the rel next prev
deprecation announcement and we still don’t have a
pagination best practice guide from Google. But...

13. What DO We Have?
JohnMu: “I’d also recommend making sure the
pagination pages can kind of stand on their own.”
Google Webmaster English Hangouts
Many Best Practice Guides Written Immediately After
● Technical SEO Guide to Pagination Post Rel=next/prev - Adam
Gent (DeepCrawl)
● How to Correctly Implement Pagination for SEO & UX - Lily
Ray (Path Interactive)
● Orit Mutznik (SilkFred) - Thank U (Rel) Next | State of Retail
Pagination 1Y Later - BrightonSEO April 2020 👈😏
@oritsimu #brightonseo

14. Our Benchmark - May 2019
@oritsimu #brightonseo
Canonicalisation Main
URL structure #? (CSR JS)
Crawlability NO
Indexability NO
Crawl depth* 50+ Pages
Indexable Percentage of
site:
31%

15. One Year Later - May 2020
@oritsimu #brightonseo
Canonicalisation Self
URL structure /page/2 (SSR JS)
Crawlability Yes
Indexability Yes
Crawl depth* 7 pages (two extremes*)
Indexable Percentage of
site:
99%

16. One Year Later+ - May 2020
@oritsimu #brightonseo
SEO & UX Join Forces
Before
After

17. Applause to Self & Devs
So the new pagination was
released and we lived happily
ever after in indexability heaven.
Did we though?
@oritsimu #brightonseo

18. *Narrator: She was about to learn
that she was not done*
Source:
Memegenerator.net
@oritsimu #brightonseo

19. Post Release Pagination Issues:
Source:
Memegenerator.net
@oritsimu #brightonseo
● 1st iteration of new pagination was via client side JS
● Main page content duplicated across paginated
pages
● The rise empty paginated pages
● Paginated pages showing as sitelinks

20. But the biggest challenge of all
John: Maybe you went from too
deep to too flat?😭
“If everything is a few clicks away,
then how would Google know
which pages are more important?”
🤔 Img Source: Getonseo.com
@oritsimu #brightonseo

21. Me:
Source: Giphy
@oritsimu #brightonseo

22. Have not achieved perfection yet,
but we did achieve:
1. Growth across the board
2. “Flat” hierarchy enables new products to get
discovered & indexed within minutes
3. One of the opportunities that set us apart in a very
competitive landscape
@oritsimu #brightonseo

23. Part II:
State of Pagination 2020
Research Findings
(Women’s Fashion, UK)
How did the rel next prev deprecation impact the
Industry in 2019-2020?

24. First, Why Not Ask Them?
Source: Twitter
@oritsimu #brightonseo

25. Pagination Research Methodology
1. Crawled & reviewed the top 150 Women’s Fashion
Retailers in the UK: JS Enabled vs Disabled
(SEMRush, Screaming Frog, DeepCrawl)
2. Categorised each site based on the type of pagination
they are using (Pagination, Load More, IS etc)
3. Used DeepCrawl’s Search Friendly Pagination
Benchmark: URL uniqueness, crawlability &
indexability
@oritsimu #brightonseo

26. The Search Friendly Pagination Criteria,
My 2020 Edition
1. URL Uniqueness:
/category-page?page=2 or /category-page/page2 or
All in One (no pagination)
2. Crawlability:
pagination linked via clean hrefs from the website
structure
3. Indexability: not blocked, canonical to self + link on
sitemap and/or from website
@oritsimu #brightonseo

27. Research Goal:
To determine who also saw this as an opportunity
to improve product accessibility, indexability and
website architecture.
Sneaky goal: To spy on my competitors😏

28. Researched Brands by Size
*By SEMRush (Market Explorer, Competitors tab etc)
From a search visibility point of view, it’s no
surprise that the most visible brands are
also the biggest*
@oritsimu #brightonseo

29. How many still have rel=next/prev in their
code?
Though most have removed it, it’s evident that the SEO
community is divided about this
@oritsimu #brightonseo
Why would they remove?
✅No longer required by
Google
Why would they keep?
✅Other SEs+W3C need it*
✅No resources
✅They don’t care
*Lily Ray - How to Correctly Implement Pagination for
SEO & User Experience

30. The most popular types of pagination
used by UK’s top women’s fashion
retailers
@oritsimu #brightonseo

31. About indexability
Here’s a reminder of what makes a page indexable, i.e “stand
on its own”
✅Self canonical (or no canonical - not recommended)
✅No robots.txt / noindex blocking
✅ A unique url or AiO
✅ An href link from the website (and/or sitemap*)
So I asked turned to the community with another poll
Pagination - Canonical to main or self?
@oritsimu #brightonseo

32. Canonical to Self Wins🎉
MainSelf
@oritsimu #brightonseo

33. For UK women’s fashion retailers
canonical to main wins🤔
@oritsimu #brightonseo

34. What does Google Say about
Canonicals?
“Specifying a rel=canonical from page 2 (or any) to page 1
is not correct use of rel=canonical, as these are not
duplicate pages. Using rel=canonical … would result in the
content on pages 2 and beyond not being indexed at all.”
5 Common Mistakes With rel=canonical, Google Webmaster Central
@oritsimu #brightonseo

35. What does Google Say about
Canonicals?
“Anything that is only contained on the non-canonical
versions will not be used for indexing purposes.”
John Mueller, Google Webmaster Office-hours Hangout Notes 7 Feb 2020 also on YouTube.
@oritsimu #brightonseo

36. If pagination is deindexed: Are
products in sitemap enough?
@oritsimu #brightonseo
“Using a sitemap doesn't guarantee that all the items
in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed, as
Google processes rely on complex algorithms to
schedule crawling.” GSC Help
👉Do not rely on your sitemap for indexing👈
products that only exist in non-indexable
pagination

37. Indexability Per Pagination Type
Despite the existence of Google guidelines for SEO-
friendly Inifinite Scroll Sites from 2014, IS loses.
@oritsimu #brightonseo

38. Total Indexable vs Non-indexable
64% of UK’s leading women’s fashion brands opt for their
pagination not to be discovered by Google, despite the amount
of products that may exist only there.
@oritsimu #brightonseo

39. Some brands want to make sure
pagination is deindexed...
@oritsimu #brightonseo

40. What about noindex follow?
If I noindex follow the pagination, surely Google will
crawl the links in the paginated pages but will not
index pagination itself?
Source: Giphy
@oritsimu #brightonseo

41. 18% of sites noindex follow
their pagination
Noindex and follow is essentially kind of the same as a
noindex, nofollow.”
– John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, Google Webmaster Hangout 15 Dec 2017
Source: Giphy
@oritsimu #brightonseo
What about noindex follow?

42. But obviously, index follow is not
enough
@oritsimu #brightonseo

43. Indexability aside, what about
crawlability?
@oritsimu #brightonseo

44. What’s standing in the way of
crawlability? 100% JS Related Issues
@oritsimu #brightonseo

45. But hasn’t Google advanced
significantly in its JS rendering?
1. Not all crawlers are able to process JS successfully or
immediately
2. Providing a non-JS alternative for rapidly changing sites or
other crawlers is recommended by Google
3. Google cannot crawl or index fragment identifiers - absolute
urls are still a requirement for paginated content
4. Content served via infinite scroll specifically has SEO friendly
guidelines since 2014, that require unique urls
and content accessibility when JS is disabled
@oritsimu
#brightonseo

46. But hasn’t Google advanced
significantly in its JS rendering?
👉Why waste Googlebot’s time forcing the door
open, when you can just open the door & let it in?
👈
And think about this...
👉By the time Google renders and indexes your
content following 2 waves of JS indexing,
your content might expire 👈 @oritsimu #brightonseo

47. Part III:
What’s Changed Since
March 2020?
(Besides everything…)

48. Good News: SEO friendly pagination
is on the rise
@oritsimu #brightonseo
● SEO friendly
pagination has
increased by 23%
since March 2020
● From N to Y:
○ 29% were S/M
Brands
○ Very big brands
made changes

49. Good News: Brands using permanent
urls on pagination are on the rise
@oritsimu #brightonseo

50. Good News: Brands are catching on
to (pagination) canonical best
practices
@oritsimu #brightonseo

51. Death to IS?
Brands seem to be abandoning infinite
scroll the most
@oritsimu #brightonseo

52. This is consistent with the growth in
the number of brands implementing IS
badly
@oritsimu #brightonseo

53. Other News
@oritsimu #brightonseo
1. The number of brands adding “noindex follow” to their
pagination has increased by 20% (18% of brands)
2. The amount of brands with rel next prev in their code
has increased by 6% (45% of brands)*
1. Crawlability numbers remain unchanged, same issues

54. Why?
@oritsimu #brightonseo
1. Add rel next previous to a pagination blocked by
robots
2. Change canonical to self but add
noindex (follow) on pagination
3. Move to IS without unique urls for
pagination
1. Fix bad canonical, point it to main
2. Change pagination type without looking at SEO
friendliness or redirecting old to new

55. The Conclusion Remains:
👉64% of women’s fashion brands in the UK do
not meet the search-friendly pagination criteria 👈
Consistent with Adam’s findings of 65% in 2019 for
Alexa’s top 150 sites
@oritsimu #brightonseo

56. Part IV:
Tips & Resources For
Search Engine Friendly
Pagination

57. My tips to getting started with SEO
Friendly Pagination
1. Ask (crawl) yourself: Is there something unique that
only lives on my pagination?
👉 If the answer is yes - make your pagination
stands on its own - crawlable, indexable, unique
urls, whilst keeping your crawl budget (params)
in check.👈
@oritsimu #brightonseo

58. My tips to getting started with SEO
Friendly Pagination
2. Know how your website is inner linked
Are all of your products covered?
👉 Use your pagination as an extension of your
inner linking strategy👈
@oritsimu #brightonseo

59. My tips to getting started with SEO
Friendly Pagination
3. How do you build a strong business case?
A simple crawl can help
👉Compare your crawl with JS enabled/disabled
and know exactly which pages Google is missing
out on due to non-friendly pagination 💸👈
@oritsimu #brightonseo

60. My tips to getting started with SEO
Friendly Pagination
4. Always think JS-disabled
Reminder: Not all SEs can crawl & render JS
👉Welcome crawlability with an indexable, inner
linked, html alternative or server side/dynamic
rendered version of your pagination as a part of
your solution👈
@oritsimu #brightonseo

61. My tips to getting started with SEO
Friendly Pagination
5. This might not be applicable to all industries
If making pagination indexable means increasing the
amount of true duplicate content into Google, this
might not be the right solution for you.
@oritsimu #brightonseo

62. If you want to conduct this research
on your industry
Get a glimpse of my methodology
Grab my template (no brand names, but you might
guess😉)
bit.ly/ecom-pagination-data
@oritsimu #brightonseo

63. Useful Pagination Resources
1. The State of Pagination & Infinite Scroll - BrightonSEO April 2019 - Adam Gent
2. The State of the Web: Search Friendly Pagination and Infinite Scroll
3. Pagination & SEO: Ultimate Best Practice Guide
4. How to Correctly Implement Pagination for SEO
5. SMX Advanced: Thriving in the New World of Pagination
6. JavaScript and SEO: The Difference Between Crawling and Indexing
7. Is Google Ready to Catch Up with JavaScript?
8. How to use pagination and infinite scroll on your category page SEO
9. How Site Pagination and Click Depth Affect SEO – An Experiment (Portent)
10.Infinite Scrolling, Pagination Or “Load More” Buttons? Usability Findings In eCommerce
11.The Ultimate Pagination - SEO Guide (Audisto)
12.Google Search for Developers, Dynamic Rendering Guide
13.Infinite Scroll Guidelines, Official GWC, Feb 13, 2014
14.“Google: Stop Using Fragment Identifiers (SER)
15.5 Mistakes Using Rel Canonical
@oritsimu #brightonseo