Improve collection pagination SEO

[dhmacs]

To do

• [x] Out-of-bounds pages should return a 404 response
• [x] Content should be chunked into pages, and each page should update the url accordingly
• [x] Pages should not overlap
• [x] Page title should be updated according to the page
• [x] Avoid indexing URLs with filters or alternative sort orders (Block Search indexing with 'noindex') — TLDR: Add meta tag "noindex"
• [x] Use canonical link for first page link control
• [x] Hide header image for page 2 and above
• [x] Use "push" instead of "replace" when navigating through collection pages (i.e. hitting the back button should bring you to the previous collection paginated page)

Reference

• Pagination and incremental page loading - Google dev docs

[JFleischhauer]

The goal of improving collection pagination is to always rank page 1 best, and decrease the amount of [page=>1] urls indexed. For this, @ifixitmaxb and I would like to remove the device intro and device summary copy on paginated pages. @dhmacs already covered all other issues we have with the current pagination.

[dhmacs]

For this, @ifixitmaxb and I would like to remove the device intro and device summary copy on paginated pages.

@JFleischhauer Copy that 👌 Do you mind just for reference to share the guidelines that motivates this? I think it would be weird from a UX perspective... Imagine the user that navigates to the second page of the product list and then when he scrolls back finds that the collection description has disappeared. Keep in mind that pagination does not cause page refresh so this is something that would happen dynamically..

[JFleischhauer]

Page title should be updated according to the page

Page title and H1 should be updated according to the page

Do you mind just for reference to share the guidelines that motivates this?

Deepcrawl wrote a year ago "Tip: You can get the best of both worlds: The products that exist on your pagination only will be indexed and Google will only rank the first page of the paginated series (i.e the category page) If you make your pagination indexable and make sure that the 1st page of the series (i.e. the category page) is the most optimized for SEO by adding unique page content & meta tags. If you de-optimize the rest of the pages in the series (by removing those content/meta tags) Google will get a clear message of what to rank."

[dhmacs]

@JFleischhauer I've got a preview with all the SEO changes:

https://react-commerce-2y9vwkphs-ifixit.vercel.app/collections/parts

Feel free to share feedback. I still think that collection description disappearing from the page looks a bit weird from a user perspective 🤔

[ianrohde]

I agree with @dhmacs on the UX. The approach of removing page elements ("de-optimizing") for SEO isn't taking design consistency into account. When I scrolled back up to the top of the second page, there was a clear cognitive disorientation because the visual anchors from the first page were gone.

If you de-optimize the rest of the pages in the series (by removing those content/meta tags) Google will get a clear message of what to rank.

Can this be substantiated?

[ifixitmaxb]

@ianrohde honest question: why would the user scroll back up to the top of the second page? How often do we think that will happen? I personally experienced no cognitive disorientation. I also think @dhmacs was going to follow @davidrans mock-up from our last call and keep the top of the page design the exact same as page 1 but just remove the intro copy (and the tagline once it exists, https://github.com/iFixit/react-commerce/pull/108) which might be less disorienting. If the user did decide to scroll back up to the top of the paginated page, it's my opinion the lay user wouldn't think much of some text missing but the same page design and imagery. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to substantiate any one specific page element as doing x or y in SEO. I can say that I've never tried this but it makes sense to me. In SEO we often have to follow expert guidance and our own experience but there is no recipe. I'm not going to fight too hard for this de-optimization of paginated pages feature request. I'd like to hear other perspectives and we can come to a consensus.

[davidrans]

Here's the mockup Max is referring to:

[ianrohde]

why would the user scroll back up to the top of the second page? How often do we think that will happen?

To chose a model option or search for a specific product from the header search bar, to name a few. I hear you on the challenges around SEO. In a perfect world we would A/B test and let the data make the decision for us, but that's not always realistic.

Since this issue is closed and for brevity, I like the new mockup. It keeps the heading placement and color consistent, which seems like a solid median.