WooCommerce pagination SEO for ContentGecko-powered stores

Pagination in WooCommerce can make or break your store’s SEO performance. I’ve seen stores lose 40% of their indexed products due to pagination misconfiguration. When working with ContentGecko-powered WooCommerce stores, getting pagination right means more products indexed, better crawl efficiency, and ultimately higher organic traffic.

Types of pagination and their SEO impact

WooCommerce stores typically implement one of three pagination approaches:

1. Standard numbered pagination - The classic “/products/page/2” format that’s inherently crawlable but can dilute relevance if content is thin
2. Infinite scroll/load more - Great for users, terrible for SEO unless properly implemented with unique URLs
3. Hybrid approach - Combining infinite scroll for users with accessible numbered navigation for crawlers

Each approach requires specific technical implementations to work correctly. From analyzing hundreds of WooCommerce sites, I’ve found standard pagination with proper canonicalization provides the most reliable SEO performance.

Canonical tags: the most common pagination mistake

The biggest pagination error I see in WooCommerce stores is improper canonical tag implementation. Here’s what you need to know:

• Each paginated page should use a self-referencing canonical tag pointing to itself
• Do NOT canonicalize all paginated pages to page 1 (e.g., don’t put <link rel="canonical" href="/category/" on /category/page-2/)

When stores incorrectly canonicalize all pages to the first page, Google treats subsequent pages as duplicates of page 1, excluding unique products from indexing. This happened to a major e-commerce client who lost 40% of their indexed product pages due to this single mistake.

To ensure proper canonicalization in ContentGecko-powered WooCommerce stores, enable the woocommerce_pagination_canonical filter:

add_filter('woocommerce_pagination_canonical', '__return_true');

Without proper self-canonicalization, search engines may consider paginated pages as duplicate content, diluting ranking potential and wasting crawl budget.

The rel=prev/next situation

Google officially deprecated support for rel="prev" and rel="next" pagination markup in 2019. However, I still recommend implementing them as:

1. They provide clear pagination signals to other search engines
2. They improve site structure understanding
3. They create no negative impact

In WooCommerce, these tags are typically added automatically but verify they’re working correctly by checking your page source.

When to use noindex/follow

For large catalogs (10,000+ products), deep pagination pages often contain thin content that can waste crawl budget. In these cases, consider:

• Keeping pages 1-5 indexed (where most users go)
• Adding noindex,follow to pages beyond 5-7 for very large catalogs

This approach preserves link equity while preventing index bloat. However, never block paginated pages via robots.txt as this prevents crawling entirely and wastes link equity.

For ContentGecko stores with large catalogs, you can implement this via a custom function:

function cg_pagination_robots() {
    if (is_paged() && get_query_var('paged') > 5) {
        echo '<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />';
    }
}
add_action('wp_head', 'cg_pagination_robots');

Handling AJAX and infinite scroll

Infinite scroll improves user experience and can increase mobile conversion rates by up to 15%, but it’s problematic for SEO unless implemented correctly. Googlebot does not interact with “load more” buttons or scroll to trigger content loading.

For ContentGecko-powered stores using infinite scroll, ensure:

1. Use the History API to create unique URLs as users scroll (e.g., /products?page=2)
2. Provide server-side rendering of each paginated state
3. Enable ContentGecko SSR configuration via contentgecko.prerenderRoutes = ['/products/page/*'];

This hybrid approach maintains UX benefits while ensuring all products remain discoverable by search engines.

Managing filter and query string URLs

Faceted navigation creates complex URLs with multiple parameters (e.g., ?color=red&size=xl). Without proper handling, these can create duplicate content issues and waste crawl budget.

For ContentGecko stores:

1. Use Google Search Console’s parameter handling tool to manage tracking and sorting parameters
2. Add to robots.txt to block non-essential parameter combinations:

   User-agent: *
   Disallow: /*?*utm_
   Disallow: /*?*sort=

3. Use canonical tags strategically:
   • For non-essential filters (sorting), canonicalize to the unfiltered URL
   • For essential filters (product attributes), use self-referencing canonicals with unique meta descriptions

Troubleshooting common crawl and indexing issues

If you’re experiencing pagination-related indexing problems in your ContentGecko WooCommerce store, check:

1. Crawl depth - No product should be more than 3 clicks from the homepage. Using our free keyword clustering tool can help identify content gaps.

2. Duplicate content - Use Screaming Frog or similar tools to identify incorrect canonical tags across paginated pages

3. Crawl budget waste - Check Google Search Console’s crawl stats report; if Google is crawling many paginated pages but not indexing products, consider implementing pagination depth limits

4. Missing content - For infinite scroll, verify content is accessible without JavaScript using “Fetch as Google” in Search Console

ContentGecko configuration recommendations

For optimal pagination SEO in ContentGecko-powered WooCommerce stores:

1. Enable self-referencing canonicals via the WooCommerce settings
2. Limit pagination depth to 5-7 pages for large catalogs via internal linking
3. Implement prerendering for JavaScript-heavy sites
4. Use descriptive URLs that include key attributes rather than numeric IDs
5. Track crawl efficiency using the SEO ROI calculator to measure impact

TL;DR

Proper pagination implementation is crucial for WooCommerce SEO success. Each paginated page should have a self-referencing canonical tag. For infinite scroll, implement server-side rendering with unique URLs. Limit pagination depth to 5-7 pages for large catalogs and use noindex,follow for deeper pages to preserve crawl budget. ContentGecko can automate many of these optimizations, ensuring your WooCommerce store maintains strong indexing while delivering excellent user experience.