Improperly defined pagination tags, specifically the rel=”next” and rel=”prev” attributes, can severely suppress organic traffic discovery at the category level by confusing search engines and disrupting the consolidation of ranking signals. Although Google announced in 2019 that it no longer uses these specific tags as a direct indexing signal, the underlying principles of handling paginated series remain crucial. Mismanagement can lead to pages being seen as duplicates, crawl budget being wasted, and authority being fragmented.
The original purpose of rel=”next/prev” was to signal to Google that a series of pages (e.g., page 1, page 2, page 3 of a product category) were part of a single, logical sequence. This allowed Google to understand the relationship and consolidate indexing signals, like backlinks, onto the first page of the series. While these specific tags are deprecated, the need to communicate this relationship still exists and is now handled through other signals.
One common improper implementation is setting the rel=”canonical” tag on all paginated pages (page 2, 3, 4, etc.) to point to the first page of the series. This seems logical, as it tells search engines that page 1 is the main version. However, it’s a powerful instruction that essentially tells Google, “Do not index pages 2, 3, and beyond.” As a result, any products or content that only appear on these subsequent pages become invisible to the search engine. They will never be crawled or indexed and thus cannot be discovered through organic search.
This directly suppresses traffic. If a user is searching for a specific product that happens to be on page 4 of a category, and page 4 has been de-indexed because of an incorrect canonical tag, your site will not appear in the search results for that product query. You have effectively hidden a portion of your inventory from search engines.
Another issue is the creation of duplicate content signals. If pagination is handled without any clear signals—no proper canonicals, no clear internal linking structure—search engines may see each paginated page as a standalone page with very similar content (the same header, footer, and sidebar, with only the list of products changing slightly). This can lead to them being flagged for duplicate content, diluting the authority of the entire category.
Wasted crawl budget is also a consequence. Without clear signals, Googlebot may crawl deep into a paginated series, spending valuable resources on pages that have little unique content and are not intended to be primary landing pages, taking time away from crawling new or more important pages on the site.
The modern best practice for handling pagination is to ensure each paginated page is indexable and has a self-referencing canonical tag. This tells Google that each page in the series is unique and should be considered for indexing. A clear and logical internal linking structure (e.g., ensuring page 2 links to page 1 and page 3) helps Google understand the sequence. This approach allows search engines to discover all the products within a category, no matter which page they are on, maximizing the potential for organic traffic discovery.