Thursday, September 15, 2011
Note: The information in this post is outdated. Rel=prev/next is not an indexing signal anymore.
Webmaster level: Intermediate to Advanced
Much like rel="canonical" acts a strong hint for duplicate content, you can now use the HTML link elements rel="next" and rel="prev" to indicate the relationship between component URLs in a paginated series. Throughout the web, a paginated series of content may take many shapes—it can be an article divided into several component pages, or a product category with items spread across several pages, or a forum thread divided into a sequence of URLs. Now, if you choose to include rel="next" and rel="prev" markup on the component pages within a series, you're giving Google a strong hint that you'd like us to:
The relationship between component URLs in a series can now be indicated to Google through rel="next" and rel="prev".
There's an exception to the rel="prev" and rel="next" implementation: If, alongside your series of content, you also offer users a view-all page, or if you're considering a view-all page, please see our post on View-all in search results for more information. Because view-all pages are most commonly preferred by searchers, we do our best to surface this version when appropriate in results rather than a component page (component pages are more likely to surface with rel="next" and rel="prev").
If you don't have a view-all page or you'd like to override Google returning a view-all page, you can use rel="next" and rel="prev" as described in this post.
For information on paginated configurations that include a view-all page, please see our post on
View-all in search results.
Outlining your options
Here are three options for a series:
Implementing rel="next" and rel="prev"
If you prefer option 3 (above) for your site, let's get started! Let's say you have content paginated into the URLs:
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=1
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=2
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=3
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=4
On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=1, you'd include in the
On the second page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=2:
On the third page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=3:
And on the last page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=4:
A few points to mention:
Much like rel="canonical" acts a strong hint for duplicate content, you can now use the HTML link elements rel="next" and rel="prev" to indicate the relationship between component URLs in a paginated series. Throughout the web, a paginated series of content may take many shapes—it can be an article divided into several component pages, or a product category with items spread across several pages, or a forum thread divided into a sequence of URLs. Now, if you choose to include rel="next" and rel="prev" markup on the component pages within a series, you're giving Google a strong hint that you'd like us to:
- Consolidate indexing properties, such as links, from the component pages/URLs to the series as a whole (i.e., links should not remain dispersed between page-1.html, page-2.html, etc., but be grouped with the sequence).
- Send users to the most relevant page/URL—typically the first page of the series.
The relationship between component URLs in a series can now be indicated to Google through rel="next" and rel="prev".
There's an exception to the rel="prev" and rel="next" implementation: If, alongside your series of content, you also offer users a view-all page, or if you're considering a view-all page, please see our post on View-all in search results for more information. Because view-all pages are most commonly preferred by searchers, we do our best to surface this version when appropriate in results rather than a component page (component pages are more likely to surface with rel="next" and rel="prev").
If you don't have a view-all page or you'd like to override Google returning a view-all page, you can use rel="next" and rel="prev" as described in this post.
Outlining your options
Here are three options for a series:
- Leave whatever you have exactly as-is. Paginated content exists throughout the web and we'll continue to strive to give searchers the best result, regardless of the page's rel="next"/rel="prev" HTML markup—or lack thereof.
- If you have a view-all page, or are considering a view-all page, see our post on View-all in search results.
- Hint to Google the relationship between the component URLs of your series with rel="next" and rel="prev". This helps us more accurately index your content and serve to users the most relevant page (commonly the first page). Implementation details below.
Implementing rel="next" and rel="prev"
If you prefer option 3 (above) for your site, let's get started! Let's say you have content paginated into the URLs:
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=1
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=2
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=3
http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=4
On the first page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=1, you'd include in the
section:
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=2" />
On the second page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=2:
<link rel="prev" href="http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=1" />
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=3" />
On the third page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=3:
<link rel="prev" href="http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=2" />
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=4" />
And on the last page, http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page;=4:
<link rel="prev" href="http://www.example.com/article?story=abc&page=3" />
A few points to mention:
- The first page only contains rel="next" and no rel="prev" markup.
- Pages two to the second-to-last page should be doubly-linked with both rel="next" and rel="prev" markup.
- The last page only contains markup for rel="prev", not rel="next".
-
rel="next" and rel="prev" values can be either relative or absolute URLs (as allowed by the
<link />tag). And, if you include a -
rel="next" and rel="prev" only need to be declared within the