Pagination
Pagination is a process used to divide content across a series of pages. Implemented as the link elements rel=next and rel=prev, these help search engine crawlers understand the relationship between the pages. With recent updates to the way Google handles pagination, our Hangout Notes cover these advancements along with recommendations for implementing pagination.
Cross Linking Deep Pages Can Help Indexing
Cross linking between deep pages linked through paginated category pages can help them be discovered more easily.
View All Paginated Pages Should Exist for Users
If you have a view all page as an alternative to a set of paginated pages, it should make sense for users, not Google.
Content and Links on Canonicalised Page’s Won’t be Seen
Any unique content and links found on paginated pages which have been canonicalised to the first page won’t be found.
Noindexing paginated pages is OK
But canonicalsing makes much more sense which he doesn’t mention.
Links on paginated pages
In response to a question about whether it is ok to canonicalize back to page one of a paginated set, John expanded more on whether Google counts links within pagination:
Use Pagination to Join Split Pages
If you want to split up a page into 2 different URLs, you can’t redirect or canonicalise from the old URL to both new URLs. You can choose one of the new pages as the main one, and link to the secondary page. And you can paginate the pages together.
Indexing Paginated and Search Results Pages
Search results pages can be made indexable. Including only the 1st page of a paginated set is an option, provided you make sure that all the details/product pages can still be reached.