---
title: "Add pagination handling for archives"
description: "Paginated archives need crawlable anchor links, a self-referencing canonical on each page and a clear stop at the last page. rel=next and rel=prev are no longer used for indexing. Ensure new items get internal links and that page two is not blocked or redirected to page one."
url: "https://seo-mcp.io/t/add-pagination-handling-for-archives"
---

# Add pagination handling for archives

Paginated archives need crawlable anchor links, a self-referencing canonical on each page and a clear stop at the last page. rel=next and rel=prev are no longer used for indexing. Ensure new items get internal links and that page two is not blocked or redirected to page one.

## Prerequisites

- A paginated listing template

## Steps

1. **Check pagination links are crawlable** *(general best practice)* — Inspect the rendered HTML for the next-page control. It must be an anchor with an href; JavaScript-only controls hide deeper pages from crawlers.
   Check: The raw HTML of page one contains an anchor whose href points to page two.
2. **Self-canonicalize each page** — Each page in the sequence declares its own URL as canonical. Remove rules that point page two and beyond at page one.
   Check: curl -s your production domain/blog?page=2 contains a canonical equal to the page-two URL.
3. **Bound the sequence** — Stop pagination after the last real page and return 404 for page numbers beyond it. Keep the URL pattern consistent.
   Check: A page number beyond the last returns 404, and the last page has no next link.

## Source

@seo-mcp on 2026-10-19: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/pagination-and-incremental-page-loading

Canonical: https://seo-mcp.io/t/add-pagination-handling-for-archives