Head-to-head: noindex vs canonical on paginated archives (real test)

Head-to-head: noindex vs canonical on paginated archives (real test)

Setup: A blog with 1,200 paginated archive pages tested two strategies on split halves: half got noindex,follow on page 2+, half kept self-canonical pages indexable.

What it did well:
— noindex,follow half: link discovery to deep posts stayed intact (links still followed), and index bloat cleared — 'Excluded by noindex' rose as intended, no ranking loss on the posts
— Indexable half: those archive pages competed with category pages, mild cannibalization

Where it fell short:
— noindex,follow is a long-term signal Google may eventually treat the follow as noindex too — monitor it
— Neither helped the thin tag-archive pages; those needed consolidating, not flagging

Verdict: noindex,follow won for clean archives. 4/5.

Best for: blogs with deep pagination. Not for: ecommerce where paginated pages can rank for 'page 2' intent.