relnextprev

RelNextPrev is an informal term used to describe the practice of using HTML link relationships to indicate navigation between pages that form a sequence, such as a multi-page article or gallery. The HTML link element supports the rel attribute with value tokens like prev and next. These tokens can be used on separate link elements or combined in a single element as rel="prev next".

In practice, a paginated article might include two separate link elements in the head of each page: <link rel="prev" href="page2.html"> and <link rel="next" href="page4.html">. The intent is to assist user agents, including browsers and automated crawlers, in discovering adjacent pages without relying solely on on-page navigation controls. The pattern is particularly common on blogs, news sites, and image galleries.

Regarding search engines, rel="prev" and rel="next" have historically been used to signal page sequences. However, search engines have varied in how they treat these hints, and in recent years these tokens are not guaranteed to influence indexing or ranking. They should not be used as the sole mechanism for handling pagination or canonicalization. Best practices: use rel="prev" and rel="next" to describe the sequence, ensure consistent URL structure, and maintain proper canonical links or rel="canonical" on each page where appropriate.

See also: link rel values, pagination, canonical URL.