What Are rel="prev" and rel="next" and Why Do They Matter?
The rel="prev" and rel="next" link attributes tell search engines that a set of pages is part of a logical sequence — a paginated series. This is common for blog archives, e-commerce category pages, and news feeds that split content across multiple numbered pages. When implemented correctly, these signals help search engines understand the full scope of the series and consolidate ranking signals across all pages in the chain.
Did Google Deprecate rel=prev/next?
Google officially deprecated its support for rel="prev" and rel="next" as a ranking signal in March 2019, stating that it had been ignoring these signals for years before the announcement. However, Bing, Yandex, and other search engines still support them. More importantly, a clean pagination implementation with consistent prev/next links still signals a well-organised, crawlable site — even if Google no longer uses the signals directly. Our Free pagination tester validates your implementation for all search engines, not just Google.
What Does a Correct rel=prev/next Implementation Look Like?
Page 1: only <link rel="next" href="page-2-url">, no rel="prev".
Pages 2 to N-1: both <link rel="prev" href="prev-url"> and <link rel="next" href="next-url">.
Last page: only <link rel="prev" href="prev-url">, no rel="next".
All URLs must be absolute, match the canonical version of each page, and form a consistent two-way chain.