You’re losing search traffic because Google can’t follow your paginated pages. If rel=next and rel=prev tags are broken or missing, search engines skip entire sections of your site.
You’ll think your category pages are indexed when they’re not. Google recrawls most sites every 3-7 days, but if pagination blocks discovery, those pages never get seen.
What Is a Pagination Checker?
Pagination Checker is a free browser-based tool that tests whether your site’s rel=next and rel=prev tags are correctly implemented. You don’t need to log in—just paste a URL and run the test.
It checks if the chain of pagination links is complete and points to valid pages. If something’s broken, it tells you exactly where.
Why It Matters for SEO
Google treats paginated series as a sequence. If one link fails, the rest won’t be crawled. Sites with 10+ category pages per section can lose over half their potential index coverage.
Indexing gaps mean fewer pages ranking. A site with 200 category pages might only get 90 indexed if pagination fails at page 3. That’s not a theory—that’s what happens with broken chains.
The real issue is most people assume "if I can click it, Google can crawl it." That’s wrong. Google follows code, not mouse clicks.
How to Use It
- Go to https://scrawl.tools/tools/pagination-checker (no login needed)
- Enter the first page of a paginated series—like /category/shoes/page/1
- Click "Check" and wait 10 seconds for the full scan
It’s free, and you can run as many checks as you want. No limits, no signup.
What the Results Tell You
You’ll see the full sequence of detected pages, with HTTP status codes for each. A 404 on page 4 breaks the chain. A redirect stops traversal. A missing rel=next kills it.
It shows you the exact href value and whether rel=prev points back correctly. If page 3 doesn’t link to page 2 with rel=prev, it flags it.
The tool also highlights inconsistent URLs—like mixing HTTPS and HTTP, or www and non-www in the chain. One mismatch breaks everything.
Most people miss that redirects in the chain often cause crawl drops. Use the Redirect Chain Checker to fix that.
3 Mistakes Most People Make
- They test only the first two pages
You’ll catch basic issues, but chains often break at page 4 or 5. Test the entire sequence—start to end.
- They ignore self-referential rel=prev on page 1
Page 1 shouldn’t have rel=prev. If it does, Google gets confused. The tool flags this instantly.
- They mix canonicals with pagination
Putting a self-referential canonical on paginated pages is fine. Using one to point all pages to page 1? That’s a disaster. Use the Canonical Checker to audit.
Here’s what actually happens: Google sees a broken chain, stops crawling, and devalues the entire category. You lose long-tail rankings across dozens of pages.
Fix it now
Don’t wait for Google to drop your pages. Test your pagination chain in seconds at https://scrawl.tools/tools/pagination-checker—it’s free and requires no login. Find breaks before search engines do.