Pagination SEO implementationWhat it checks and how to fix it

What it checks

Detects paginated pages through rel="next" / rel="prev" links, links containing page=, /page/ or /p/, or a pagination nav. When page links exist but neither rel="next" nor rel="prev" is declared, or a declared rel link has an empty href, it warns; otherwise it passes. Pages with no pagination or infinite scroll are skipped.

Why it matters

Paginated listings are how crawlers reach the products, posts or results beyond page one. When the series is not clearly linked, deeper items can be crawled late or not at all. Google no longer uses rel="next"/"prev" as an indexing signal, but Bing and other engines still read it, and the same markup keeps the series explicit for every crawler.

How to fix it

On each page of the series, declare its neighbours in <head> with absolute URLs, and keep plain crawlable <a href> links to the pages in the body:

<!-- on https://example.com/blog?page=2 -->
<link rel="prev" href="https://example.com/blog?page=1">
<link rel="next" href="https://example.com/blog?page=3">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/blog?page=2">

<nav aria-label="Pagination">
  <a href="/blog?page=1">Previous</a>
  <a href="/blog?page=3">Next</a>
</nav>

Give each page its own self-referencing canonical; do not point every page of the series at page 1, or the items on later pages drop out of the index. If you use infinite scroll, make sure each chunk also has a real paginated URL that crawlers can follow.