Do Paginated URLs have self-referencing canonicals?
When dealing with paginated URLs in eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, it’s crucial to understand how canonical tags should be implemented to avoid duplicate content issues and ensure proper indexing by search engines.
Shopify
In Shopify, paginated URLs typically have self-referencing canonical tags by default. This means that each page in a paginated series will have a canonical tag pointing to itself. For example, example.com/collections/all?page=2 will have a canonical tag pointing to example.com/collections/all?page=2. This helps search engines understand that each paginated page is a unique URL and should be indexed separately.
WooCommerce
In WooCommerce, the behavior can vary depending on the theme and plugins you are using. By default, WooCommerce does not add self-referencing canonical tags to paginated URLs. To add self-referencing canonicals, you can use an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO. Once installed, Yoast SEO will automatically add self-referencing canonical tags to your paginated URLs.
To verify or customize this behavior, you can check the source code of your paginated pages or use a browser extension like “View Page Source” to ensure that the canonical tags are correctly implemented.
Conclusion
Having self-referencing canonical tags on paginated URLs is essential for proper SEO. Shopify handles this automatically, while WooCommerce may require additional plugins like Yoast SEO to achieve the same result. Always verify the implementation to ensure your paginated pages are correctly indexed by search engines.