Ecommerce site pagination doubts

[cesareb]

Hello, I have got a doubt about the pagination of my website (ecommerce).

Let's see an example:
First of all I have this category page www.example.com/category.html

This category has got 4 pages + 1 "View All" page

Here they are:
- Page 1: www.example.com/category.html -> with rel=next
- Page 2: www.example.com/category.html?View=2 -> with rel=next + prev
- Page 3: www.example.com/category.html?View=3 -> with rel=next + prev
- Page 4: www.example.com/category.html?View=4 -> with rel=prev
- Page 5: www.example.com/category.html?All=1 -> with a rel=canonical pointing to www.example.com/category.html ('cause I want Google to index the first page that has less loadtime)

I was wondering if it is right to have www.example.com/category.html as first page or I need to have ALSO www.example.com/category.html?View=1 (consider that they are two identical pages).
Some website have both the URLS...some other not.

Thank you very much =)

[FranticFish]

Hi cesareb and welcome to the forums!

Websites that have /category.html & /category.html?view=1 or similar to view the same page are creating duplicate content. If you don't have this, so much the better.

However you are creating duplicate content by having an ALL page that has the content from the other 4 pages, and you cannot fix this problem with your canonical tag use.

It's a common misconception that the canonical tag is an 'amalgamate' tag or a 'give this url to this content' tag. It's not. It is intended use is to give the preferred url for two or more urls that display content that is identical or near-identical. The most common mistake according to Google themselves is to use it wrongly in pagination, see Mistake 1 here: [webmasters.googleblog.com...]

if you're going to keep your 'ALL' page you need no make it 'noindex'. Then there's no need for a canonical tag.

One other bit of advice is to check that your pages are all indexed. If they're not then make sure that your pagination code actually puts links into the page that are there in the source code that initially loads. Google say they can index content via links loaded by Javascript - and they do sometimes - but I've seen them not do this sometimes even where there was rel=next/prev. So, if all your paginated pages are indexed then great, but if they're not take a look at your pagination code and make sure that the links are visible when you 'view source'.

[Andy Langton]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, cesareb :)

Google's general guidance [support.google.com] is that users prefer a "view all" page, and that this should be the canonical for paginated results (e.g. the pagination is seen as containing just part of the 'view all' content). Their specific comment on 'view all' is here:

Indicate paginated content [webmasters.googleblog.com]

If you don't want the 'view all' to be the first in the series then you do have two closely related pages, although the canonical attribute may not be enough, as the page's content isn't actually the same, and Google may choose to ignore it.

[cesareb]

Hello everyon and thank you very much....

the Google guide is ok (i have read it over and over again), but I still have a doubt... let's suppose the reverse situation....so that in my ecommerce I have this situation:

Common ecommerce category URL structure:
- www.example.com/product-category.html
- www.example.com/product-category.html?View=1
- www.example.com/product-category.html?View=2
- www.example.com/product-category.html?View=3
- .....................
- www.example.com/product-category.html?View=ALL

What do I have to do with this 2 URLs?
- www.example.com/product-category.html
- www.example.com/product-category.html?View=1

They are the exact same page but if I use the rel=next / prev It seems that the pagination chain is broken.....

This is what I mean:
www.example.com/product-category.html
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/product-category.html?View=2">

www.example.com/product-category.html?View=1
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/product-category.html?View=2">

www.example.com/product-category.html?View=2
<link rel="prev" href="http://www.example.com/product-category.html">
<link rel="next" href="http://www.example.com/product-category.html?View=3">


No pages are pointing back to "www.example.com/product-category.html?View=1"
But only to "www.example.com/product-category.html".

Is this correct or what?

Thank you everyone!

[blend27]

What I usually would do is:

1. Try not have any links of any kind to /product-category.html?View=1
I know it might be too late when Goog/AndOthers already has the URL, if so just put NOINDEX metatag on that page.

2. Also put NOINDEX metatag if the number of URL params exceeds the allowable limit,
e.g. someone linked to your page 2 as follows: /product-category.html?View=2&someother=param - that will create DUPE content for page 2 as well if "&someother=param" means absolutely nothing to the logic and the same content is served, so you will have to mitigate that as well.

3. Make sure the word View starts with CAPITAL V(in your case) and is not spelled in any other way, say viEw = must have NOINDEX metatag

4. if there are multiple valid URL params make sure that they are in a specific ORDER, content is served to a proper order of params only.

Ideally this should be done/checked for before the site is released to Public/SEs Indexing, that way you will have less .LOG hunting later on. It is that case when I usually just return NOT Found page to any irregularities.

5. If it is decided to redirect invalid URL pages to the proper ones, making sure there are NO CHAINED redirects of any king as well, and I think that is very important also.

In reality, the above rules/suggestions should be considered for every URL on you site.

Run You Ship Tight, No second guessing.

When someone is trying to open a door and there is a big sign on the door that says PULL, the door should only open when pulled and not Lifted & Pushed.

--------------------------------------------
Hope this helps.

Blend27