SEOs frustrated by Google’s belated pagination announcement

Posted On 11 Jun 2020
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Apparently, people don’t like being kept in the dark.

Here’s how Google broke the news:

Google Webmasters

@googlewmc

Spring cleaning!

As we evaluated our indexing signals, we decided to retire rel=prev/next.
Studies show that users love single-page content, aim for that when possible, but multi-part is also fine for Google Search. Know and do what’s best for *your* users! pic.twitter.com/hCODPoKgKp

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Just prior to that, Google’s John Mueller laid this detail on us:

Glenn Gabe@glenngabe

@johnmu Can you comment on this? Using the correct combination of rel next/prev with rel canonical has been the way that Google has recommended setting up pagination for a very long time. This impacts so many sites across the web. Would be great to have a Googler chime in. 🙂

🍌 John 🍌

@JohnMu

We noticed that we weren’t using rel-next/prev in indexing for a number of years now, so we thought we might as well remove the docs :).

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Why you mad, though? 
Notable SEOs like Alan Bleiweiss and Jenny Halasz are pushing back.

Alan Bleiweiss@AlanBleiweiss

So let’s recap. @googlewmc officially retires their use of Link Relationship tags for pagination.
A tag set that reinforces multi-page relationships.
We know, for a fact, that Google needs all the reinforcing signals they can get. 1/

Alan Bleiweiss@AlanBleiweiss

Always have, always will. Nobody there knows what the ENTIRE system does, or how it does it. Too many moving parts. So they need reinforcing signals. This is not rocket science understanding of the flaws in their system. 2/

See Alan Bleiweiss’s other Tweets

While Bleiweiss insists that Google needs reinforcing signals like link relationship tags to effectively index, Halasz points out that there are other search engines out there and (perhaps more importantly) that these tags may provide support for users who rely on technology such as screen readers to navigate.

Jenny Halasz #BlackLivesMatter #MasksForAll

@jennyhalasz

Please don’t change standard WCAG practices just b/c “Google said”! There are other search engines and other reasons (like accessibility) you should do things on websites that have nothing to do with Google!

I’m upset with Google for not mentioning the accessibility standard. https://twitter.com/rustybrick/status/1109062138432237570 

Barry Schwartz

@rustybrick

Now that we know Google no longer supports rel=next/prev – here is Google’s latest advice on what to do https://www.seroundtable.com/googles-advice-on-pagination-page-series-post-rel-next-and-rel-prev-27297.html 

View image on Twitter
See Jenny Halasz #BlackLivesMatter #MasksForAll’s other Tweets

Others are highlighting the hypocrisy.

Kevin_Indig@Kevin_Indig

If users love single-page content, why aren’t Google search results on a single page?

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People aren’t just upset that Google stopped supporting these tags, they feel betrayed because they’ve invested resources into making this a part of their user interface on the belief that it’s a best practice.

Paul Thompson@thompsonpaul

So what other expensive processes have your engineers been instructing us to use *for years* that you’ve been ignoring *for years*?

See Paul Thompson’s other Tweets

And, of course, there are the memes.

Screaming Frog

@screamingfrog

Hreflang right now

Embedded video

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Translation: the joke here is that the “hreflang” attribute (which tells Google which language a page uses) is next to get the axe. (It is just a joke.)

Why you should care. As search systems evolve, the ways they use or rely on markup changes, too. This won’t be the last subtraction or addition. Google apologized for the lapsed communication and expressed it would communicate markup changes when they happen going forward.

The reactions underscore that just because Google cuts support for something doesn’t mean it may not still be valuable for user experience or recognized by other platforms. Google apologized and maintains that webmasters should use it for reasons other than indexing. Just be sure to consider the broader impact the markup might have before deciding whether or not to stop using it themselves.

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