HTML Pagination.

Managing pagination

The rel="next" and rel="prev" pagination attributes tell search engines how URLs in a paginated series relate to each other. They help consolidate indexing signals across the sequence and point users to the most relevant URL in the series.

Pagination is very common on e-commerce sites, blogs and forum threads. Although Google no longer uses these elements for indexing (links in rel=prev/next don’t pass ranking), they’re still important for other search engines such as Bing and Yahoo, for crawlability and for defining the site structure.

Let’s go through the steps to collect any pagination issues.

Analysing pagination with Screaming Frog

1. Set the pagination options

First, enable the pagination option in 1Configuration›2Spider›3Crawl so Screaming Frog crawls and stores the data needed to build the reports.

Once that’s set up, you can run the crawl.

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1Spider › CrawlThe configuration section to open.2Pagination (Rel Next/Prev)Tick Crawl and Store to collect the pagination attributes.

2. Review the pagination data

When the crawl is done, view the data in the 1Pagination tab and use one of the available filters to assess how the attributes are implemented and spot any issues.

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1PaginationThe tab with the pagination data.2FiltersFrom Contains Pagination to Sequence Error.

3. Run Crawl Analysis

Every filter is populated during the crawl except “Unlinked Pagination URLs” and “Pagination Loop”, which need Crawl Analysis.

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1Unlinked Pagination URLsRequires Crawl Analysis.2Pagination LoopThis filter is also populated after Crawl Analysis.

All that’s left is to enable Pagination in 1Crawl Analysis›2Configure and start SEO Spider’s calculation.

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1Crawl AnalysisThe configuration section.2PaginationCalculates Unlinked Pagination URLs and Pagination Loop.3Auto-analyse at End of CrawlStarts the analysis automatically when the crawl ends.

Exporting pagination data

Once you’ve picked the filters that suit your SEO audit, all that’s left is to export the data.

You can use the “Export” button in the tab, which gives you the data of the applied filter only, or the aggregated export from 1Reports›2Pagination, with full details of the source pages that contain pagination errors or issues.

For example, the 1Reports›2Pagination›3Unlinked Pagination URLs export includes the details of the source pages whose rel="next" and rel="prev" attributes point to URLs that receive no other links from the rest of the site.

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1ReportsThe menu with the aggregated reports.2PaginationThe pagination reports submenu.3Unlinked Pagination URLsPaginated URLs that receive no other internal links.

Video tutorial

Video tutorialScreaming Frog tutorial: website pagination analysisWatch the video2:05