: Is this a correct rel next/prev and canonical strategy for paginated listing URLs? I have listing pages of this format: www.example.com/xyz/abc/pageNo?x=X&y=Y The URL parameters only are used

@Ogunnowo487

It depends on what/how you sort.

canonical

If page /xyz/abc/1 contains {"A", "B", "C"}, and if page /xyz/abc/1?x=X contains {"B", "C", "D"}, it would be wrong to say that /xyz/abc/1?x=X has the canonical URL /xyz/abc/1.

If page /xyz/abc/1 contains {"A", "B", "C"}, and if page /xyz/abc/1?x=X contains {"C", "B", "A"}, it would be correct to say that /xyz/abc/1?x=X has the canonical URL /xyz/abc/1.

In other words: a canonical URL must contain the same content, and may contain additional content.

So if the sorting changes which items are on a specific page, don’t use canonical like that. If you still want to use canonical, either point to a page that contains all items, or use it to point to a canonical sorting of the parameters (so ?z=X&x=X could have the canonical URL ?x=X&z=Z).

next / prev

And no matter which case is yours, you probably want to keep the parameters for the next/prev URLs.

A visitor that has sorting x=X on page 2 will likely want to have the same sorting on page 3, and in case the visitor goes back to page 2, will likely want to see the same sorting as before.

So /xyz/abc/2?x=X&y=Y should have:


Prev: /xyz/abc/1?x=X&y=Y
Next: /xyz/abc/3?x=X&y=Y

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@Cooney921

If x and y parameters doesn't change the page's content then it is the right way to do it.

Remember to also include only the prev/ canonical attribute in the final page.

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