Canonicalizing every paginated page back to page 1

Canonicalizing every paginated page back to page 1

A stubborn myth: set rel=canonical on page 2, 3, 4… of a listing to point at page 1, to "avoid duplicates." The result: Google may drop pages 2+ from indexing and, with them, the deeper items only reachable from those pages. You orphan half your catalog.

What works:
— Each paginated page self-canonicals (page 2 canonicals to page 2)
— Deeper items stay discoverable through the chain

Where the page-1 canonical falls short:
— Items on page 3+ lose their crawl path and quietly deindex
— It misrepresents distinct pages as duplicates (they're not)

The fix: self-referencing canonicals on every page of the series. Make sure each links to the next/prev so crawlers can walk the set, and ensure deep items also live in the sitemap as a backstop. rel=next/prev is no longer used by Google, but normal anchor links work fine.

Best for: large e-commerce/listing catalogs.
Not for: anyone treating pagination as duplicate content. Self-canonical, every time.