The pagination tag: definition and optimisation for search engine optimisation

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In the world of digital marketing pagination is an essential element to improveuser experience and make it easier to navigate website with several pages.

To do this successfully, you need to use pagination tags.

But what exactly is a pagination tag? How can you use it correctly to improve your site's natural referencing? This article will help you answer these questions.

What is the pagination tag?

La pagination tag is a technique used by Web developers to enable visitors to navigate easily around a site with several pages. It involves the use of certain HTML to tell search engine spiders how to access and index the different pages on your site. Systems such as WordPress often use this system to divide long articles or product lists into several successive pages.

The rel="next " and rel="prev " tags

The main pagination tags are rel="next" and rel="prev". These two tags allow search engine spiders to access the next and previous pages of your web content respectively. By adding these tags to the links on your page, you make it easier for your visitors to navigate while helping search engines to better understand the structure of your site.

The rel= "canonical" tag

In addition to the "next" and "prev" tags, it is essential to use theURL canonical tag for each page in your pagination. The purpose of this tag is to indicate to search engines which version of a URL should be indexed. This avoids problems of content duplication, which can be detrimental to your site's natural referencing.

Best practices for optimising the pagination tag to improve SEO

Use internal links to make navigation easier

It is essential to use internal links to help visitors navigate your site and encourage search engine spiders to explore more pages. For example, you can include a link to the first and last pages of your pagination or add HTML anchor links to access a specific page directly.

Follow Google's recommendations

For the pagination tag to be correctly taken into account by Google, you must comply with certain standards stipulated in the recommendations from the American giant :

• • Provide direct links to all the pages in your pagination to make it easier for users of support tools to navigate through them
  • Do not block search engine spiders with meta tags "noindex,follow
  • Include a rel="nofollow" tag for pagination links, if necessary
  • Check that all the URLs in your pagination are unique and not duplicated

Optimise the display of your paginated pages

To improve the user experience and natural referencing of your site, it is important to pay particular attention to the presentation of your paginated pages:

1. 1. Simplify the structure of your pagination by avoiding double slashes or relative URLs, which can create errors or be misinterpreted by robots.
   2. Make your texts clear and legible, taking care to describe each of your pages clearly with a title (H1, H2) distinct
   3. Add explicit meta description tags for each page

Take account of SEO definitions

It is crucial to respect the terms of the SEO community such as dictionary in the creation of your content. For example, you need to give a clean, understandable meaning to the terms used in your pagination pages.

Set up an intelligent archive management system

If you need to list several articles on the same page (page 1 of a pagination), consider implementing an intelligent archive management system. This could include features such as :

• Preservation of the history of previous versions, to avoid duplication problems and preserve the memory of the content
• The use of intelligent navigation by categories, keywords or tags, enabling visitors to quickly find the content on your site that appeals to them
• Setting up monthly or weekly archives, as required, to make it easier to consult old articles or documents

By following these tips and best practices, you will not only improve the user experience of your site, but also its natural referencing thanks to optimal use of the pagination tag.

Don't hesitate to consult our other article on this subject to learn more and discover other SEO tips.