How many terms are there that are unknown to people? With the development of technology and everything connected with the Internet, there are more and more concepts every day. Even previously familiar terms acquire a new meaning and are used by other specialists in a completely different field. Pagination is just the concept that has migrated from publishing to Internet marketing and has become an integral part of it.
General
Immediately you need to determine the general pagination in publishing and pagination in Internet marketing. In both cases, the term comes from the Latin word "page". We can conditionally say that the initial concept practically did not change its meaning. Pagination switched from paper to electronic format and in some cases slightly changed its specialization.
Initial definition
So, in this case, it is believed that pagination is a multi-valued term that somehow relates to pages.
But still, initially the world learned about this concept from publishing. There he describes the sequential pagination, which is implemented through the column. They can be placed at the top, bottom and even on the sides.
In simple words, then in publishing, pagination is the usual numbers on the margins in books, documents, magazines, etc.
Automatic
Continuing the topic of publishing, you can find out that there are several types of such numbering. Automatic pagination of text with illustrations is formed according to complex rules and according to a special algorithm that independently determines where it is necessary to form a page break.
In this case, the rules should not forget about other norms, for example, on hanging lines. This is a fairly strict rule in the publishing house, from which many editors have recently begun to depart. Moreover, it is not clear for what reason: either from ignorance, or from laziness, or in protest.
A dangling line is a term that describes the end line of a paragraph that hits the beginning of a line or column. Also, the hanging line can be called the first line of the paragraph, which turned out to be “lost" and left on the previous page.
As a result, to prevent this from happening, automatic pagination algorithms monitor this. Thus, the semantic component parts of the content are together, without separation from each other.
Separate
Such pagination is a bibliographic term approved by GOST. It is a classic manifestation of this definition. Designates a separate page numbering for each article, part of the collection, chapters of the book.
Together with this term, the concept of "foliation" appears. It is interpreted as numbering, but not of each page, but of each sheet. Hence similar terminology (translated from Latin folio it is “page”).
Development
Further, our term appears in the basics of web programming. Pagination is used by designers who interpret it differently. For them, this term means showing a certain amount of information on one web page. For example, in the search results show 10 pages. The forum can be used 20-30 threads, etc.
In this case, pagination serves as a separator of large amounts of information and is implemented through the navigation block, which helps you navigate to other pages.
Search engine optimization
So we smoothly approached pagination and SEO. This topic is more extensive, so for people who are completely unfamiliar with search engine optimization, you will have to give more definitions. Let's start with the most important thing - SEO.
So, in Russian, this abbreviation sounds like "search engine optimization." In English, it stands for search engine optimization. If you do not delve into specialized terminology, then we are faced with a specialization that deals with external and internal site optimization in order to raise its position in search results.
This can be explained by an example. So, you decided to open a children's toy store. To do this, created a site, and then what? Indeed, without his help, he will not immediately appear at all people who are looking for children's toys.
First, the search engine robot should find out that you have a website. Secondly, your resource should contain words by which a potential customer can find the right products. Thirdly, the resource must be correctly designed so that search robots do not give it filters and send it to the ban.
For all this to work, they use optimization. If everything is done correctly, then at the request of "children's toys" your resource will be in the first positions in the search results.
Problems
So, now that you know about SEO, understanding what pagination is will be easier. As mentioned earlier, this term in web programming means almost the same as in publishing. Sites also have their own serial numbering, which can be up or down. Often we meet her on the pages of an online store with goods, when by filtering a particular product we are given a whole list of models.
It so happened that pagination for internal optimization is an important point. With her, questions and two main problems can often arise:
- Limited work of the search robot.
- Duplicates
Limitations
So, if the correct pagination is configured on your site, but without taking into account possible problems, then you will encounter limited work of robots.
When they visit your site to scan new pages and add them to the index, they do it in different modes. Depending on the site, its depth, the number of elements, such work may take them more or less time. If you have a young resource on which content rarely appears, then robots will come to you less and less, and scanning will become superficial.
If you have pagination pages, then most likely the robots will not go through each of them. Accordingly, not all products will be indexed, will fall into the search results. All this will lead to low sales figures, because a potential buyer will not even know that there is such a toy in your online store.
Duplicates
The next problem is with duplicates. Of course, it all depends on the structure of your resource and how well you thought out its content. But often it happens that pagination pages have similar or identical content.
For example, on sale there is a machine of a certain model and manufacturer, but in several colors. Agree, it happens that the client is looking for a specific product, indicating all the details about it, right down to the color. Therefore, having separate pages for products that differ only in color is good, but dangerous.
All this leads to duplicates. You begin to find identical meta tags. Duplicate content may be misinterpreted by the search engine. It’s difficult for her to determine how important this or that page is to you and which one is more relevant.
Decision
It just so happened that an SEO specialist is a creative profession. It often requires an individual approach, rarely dictates certain rules. Specialists sometimes have to independently look for solutions to problems. However, they do not follow any recommendations, but try everything that is generally possible.
But the interaction of pagination and SEO does not apply to such situations. Possible problems and recommendations have already been worked out and established, and therefore there are several options for how to fix the above “marketing disasters”.
Manually
So, the first solution to these problems is to get rid of pagination by pagination by removing it from the index. To do this, use the noindex tag.
Most often, this option is advised to use, since it is quickly and easily implemented. Thanks to this method, you can easily exclude from the search results all pagination elements, except the main one.
To apply this option, you need to add a special meta tag to each page except the first. This command must be placed in a block.
This tag will help us remove all pagination pages from the index, except the main page. But the indexation of each product will still be carried out.
Using this option, you need to remember a couple of points. Firstly, if you have a description of the main page of the catalog, then it should only be on the main page. Secondly, you need to monitor the duplication of "url".
This solution has both pros and cons. It is believed that this option is suitable for the Yandex search engine, and it is also quite simple to implement. But among the shortcomings, you can find that so you can "throw out" additional content from the index.
Google recommendation
Do not think that pagination is the worst thing that happened to your site. This is a small problem that can be solved in several ways. The first we have already considered. As we understand it, it is more suitable for those resources that rely on the Yandex robot.
Google suggests creating a separate page to display all the products in a particular catalog. This page is called "See All." It will be enough to put on it: rel = “canonical” in the block.
It is important to know that for this method you need to work out the “See All” fast download. It should not exceed 3 seconds. This method is ideal for categories that have up to 20 pagination pages.
Universal
The next method to combat pagination is to use Rel = “prev” / “next”. It is believed that although this is a universal option for Google, it is still very difficult, and for beginners it is also dangerous.
Using the above command, you form a conditional chain between all pages in the category. This attribute helps to combine the necessary pages into one element that will be indexed.
Pagination Optimization
This is how you can easily get rid of pagination pages and duplicates. You can choose any option from the above. As practice shows, for different resources the solutions may be different.
The main thing is to understand that such methods should still be used by those who are at least a little versed in optimization. Otherwise, you can seriously screw up, and others will have to fix it for a lot of money. If you are not confident in your abilities, it is better to immediately contact the SEO-specialists who are engaged in this kind of daily. They will independently analyze the site and individually select the option to fix pagination problems.
findings
So interesting was the observed term. All you need to know for an ordinary user who hears this concept for the first time: pagination is an ordinal numbering.
This definition is used in publishing. In this case we meet with pagination every day, picking up a book or a periodical. The same interpretation applies to pagination on the Internet. The only thing is that in this case the scale of the information is different, and accordingly the numbering can be different.
For example, they can use direct numbering (1, 2, 3, 4 ...). There is a direct numbering option, but with an indication of the number of products in the list. For example, on each page there are 10 products, then pagination will look like this: 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc. There is in web programming and the use of reverse pagination.
The topic with pagination optimization is quite extensive. The above problems and solutions are just a superficial presentation. The rest is best left to specialists who work with it every day.
It is important to understand that poorly optimized pagination pages can harm the entire resource, as some completely useless materials are indexed, and important and weighted pages will be ignored.