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Enter a domain on the left and run the test. Results stream in here.
Paste the URL of any page in a paginated series — a category page, archive, or search results page.
We parse the rel=next and rel=prev <link> tags from the head, along with the canonical tag and robots directives.
You get a report on whether pagination tags are present, point to valid URLs, and whether the canonical setup risks deindexing deeper pages.
Google announced in 2019 that it no longer uses rel=next/prev as an indexing signal, but the tags are still valuable. Bing and other engines may still use them, they help accessibility and some browsers prefetch the next page, and they document your pagination structure clearly. They cause no harm and remain a recommended best practice for paginated series.
Google treats each paginated page as a standalone URL and tries to understand the series from context (links, anchor text, URL patterns). The modern advice is: make each page self-canonical (not canonical to page 1), keep all paginated pages indexable, and ensure strong internal links so Google can crawl the full series. Don't noindex deeper pages if they contain unique items.
No. This is a common and damaging mistake. If page 2, 3, 4… all set their canonical to page 1, Google may drop the products or articles that only appear on those deeper pages from its index. Each paginated page should have a self-referencing canonical pointing to itself. This tool flags pagination paired with a page-1 canonical.
A broken chain happens when rel=next/prev tags don't link consistently — for example, page 2 has a rel=prev but no rel=next even though page 3 exists, or a rel=next points to a 404 or to a non-existent page. Broken chains make it harder for crawlers and assistive tech to traverse your series. This tool reports which tags are present and missing.
No. The first page in a series should have a rel=next pointing to page 2 but no rel=prev (there's nothing before it). The last page should have a rel=prev but no rel=next. Pages in the middle should have both. A rel=prev on page 1 or a rel=next on the last page is a misconfiguration this tool will flag.
They belong as <link> elements inside the <head> of the HTML, e.g. <link rel="next" href="https://example.com/category?page=2">. They should use absolute URLs. Note that rel=next/prev on <a> elements in the body (used for accessibility) are separate from the head <link> tags that search engines historically read.
Use crawlable <a href> links to each page (not JavaScript-only buttons), give each page a self-referencing canonical, keep them indexable, optionally include rel=next/prev as documentation, and consider a 'view all' page if the full list is reasonably sized. Avoid infinite scroll without paginated URL fallbacks, since crawlers can't trigger scroll events.