Rel=Prev & Rel=Next: The Real Story

Rel=prev and rel=next are HTML link attributes that were once used to indicate a sequential relationship between paginated pages, such as page 1, page 2, and page 3 of a category or article series. They told search engines: “This page is part of a sequence—here is the previous and next piece.”

Their original purpose was to consolidate ranking signals across a paginated series and help search engines understand the order of content. For example, on an e-commerce category with multiple pages of products, you would add <link rel="prev" href="/category?page=1"> and <link rel="next" href="/category?page=3"> in the <head> section.

• Signal sequence: Indicate a logical reading order.
• Consolidate signals: Prevent duplicate content issues across pages.
• Improve discovery: Help crawlers find all pages in a series.

No, Google officially deprecated rel=prev and rel=next as indexing and ranking signals in March 2019. Google’s John Mueller confirmed that these attributes are no longer used for ranking purposes, and they are treated as ordinary HTML hints that are largely ignored.

Google now relies on crawlable links and page content to understand pagination. If your pages are linked together with standard anchor tags, Google can follow the sequence naturally. However, this does not mean rel=prev/next are harmful—they simply don't provide the SEO benefit they once did.

• Bing and other engines: Some still recognize them as hints, but support varies.
• Accessibility: They can help screen readers and other assistive technologies understand page order.
• No penalty: Keeping them won't hurt, but removing them won't improve rankings.

Modern pagination SEO focuses on crawlable links, unique content, and proper canonicalization. Here’s what to implement instead:

• Standard anchor links: Ensure each paginated page links to the next and previous pages using normal <a> tags. Google follows these.
• Self-referencing canonicals: Each paginated page should have a canonical tag pointing to itself, not to page 1. This prevents deindexing of deeper pages.
• Unique content and titles: Add unique product descriptions, meta titles, and H1s for each page to avoid thin content.
• URL parameters: Use clean, readable URLs like /category?page=2 or /category/page/2 instead of session IDs.
• Load more or infinite scroll: If using JavaScript, ensure content is accessible via separate URLs for crawling.

For a deeper technical audit, use our Technical SEO Check tool to identify pagination issues automatically.