Avia Element Pagination

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your reply! Noted that we can’t change the avia-element-paging name! For the SEO best practice, this was regarding this sentence:
Don’t use the first page of a paginated sequence as the canonical page. Instead, give each page in its own canonical URL.

The blog on our page has the following slug: /blog/?avia-element-paging=2 but the canonical URL for this is still *URL removed*. According to Google’s best practice for paging, this should be:
“Google is very clear now: each page within a paginated series should canonicalize to itself, so /page/2/ has a canonical pointing to /page/2/.”

We have the Yoast plug-in installed at this moment, but that does not seem to be adding the right canonical url to the pagination page. What could I do for this issue to work?

Kind regard,
Joost

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by Mike. Reason: removed url per user request

Hi Mike,

A small update on this. What I want to achieve is not to change the URL structure, but rather that each paginated is pointing towards itself as a canonical page. Then, the Yoast plug-in also advises to add rel=next and rel=prev tags to the pagination buttons.

You can read more about that here: https://yoast.com/help/is-the-plugin-compatible-with-paginated-content/
And here is a Github link to the implementation: https://gist.github.com/amboutwe/66c583d2ef4015a8a244ee3e0e8cd1a0

There is also another ticket that links to this: https://kriesi.at/support/topic/alternate-page-with-correct-canonical-tag/.

I tried, based on the documentation, to alter the Yoast plug-in to take the avia-pagination into account when adding it’s logic, both canonical wise and with the prev/next rel’s.

Could you guide me in the right direction with this:

<?php
/**
 * Fix Yoast SEO pagination compatibility with Enfold theme using avia-element-paging.
 *
 * This will:
 * - Override the canonical URL to point to the current paginated URL
 * - Add correct rel="next" and rel="prev" links for Yoast SEO
 * - Handle first page navigation properly
 * - Work with multiple Enfold paginated pages
 */

// Store max pages in a more efficient way
global $avia_pagination_data;
$avia_pagination_data = [];

// More efficient way to store max pages without creating duplicate queries
add_filter('avia_blog_post_query', function($query, $params) {
    global $avia_pagination_data;
    
    // Store the page ID so we can track pagination for multiple pages
    $page_id = get_the_ID();
    if (!isset($avia_pagination_data[$page_id])) {
        $avia_pagination_data[$page_id] = [];
    }
    
    // We don't need to create a new query object here
    // Just extract the pagination data from the query args
    if (isset($query['posts_per_page']) && isset($params['items'])) {
        $posts_per_page = intval($query['posts_per_page']);
        $total_items = intval($params['items']);
        
        if ($posts_per_page > 0) {
            $max_pages = ceil($total_items / $posts_per_page);
            $avia_pagination_data[$page_id]['max_pages'] = $max_pages;
        }
    }
    
    return $query;
}, 20, 2);

/**
 * Helper function to check if we're on an Enfold paginated page
 */
function is_enfold_paginated_page() {
    // Check if we're on a singular page that might have pagination
    if (!is_singular()) {
        return false;
    }
    
    // Check for the pagination parameter
    $has_param = isset($_GET['avia-element-paging']);
    
    // Also check if the page content contains Enfold pagination elements
    $content = get_post_field('post_content', get_the_ID());
    $has_pagination_element = (
        strpos($content, 'blog') !== false || 
        strpos($content, 'portfolio') !== false ||
        strpos($content, 'av_masonry_entries') !== false
    );
    
    return $has_param || $has_pagination_element;
}

/**
 * Get current page and max pages for the current Enfold page
 */
function get_enfold_pagination_data() {
    global $avia_pagination_data;
    $page_id = get_the_ID();
    
    $current_page = isset($_GET['avia-element-paging']) ? intval($_GET['avia-element-paging']) : 1;
    $max_pages = isset($avia_pagination_data[$page_id]['max_pages']) ? 
                 $avia_pagination_data[$page_id]['max_pages'] : 
                 10; // Fallback value
                 
    return [
        'current' => $current_page,
        'max' => $max_pages
    ];
}

/**
 * Fix canonical URL for Enfold pagination
 */
add_filter('wpseo_canonical', function($canonical) {
    if (!is_enfold_paginated_page()) {
        return $canonical;
    }
    
    $data = get_enfold_pagination_data();
    $current_page = $data['current'];
    
    // Only modify if we're on a paginated page
    if ($current_page > 1) {
        return add_query_arg('avia-element-paging', $current_page, get_permalink());
    }
    
    return $canonical;
});

/**
 * Fix prev link for Enfold pagination
 */
add_filter('wpseo_prev_rel_link', function($link) {
    if (!is_enfold_paginated_page()) {
        return $link;
    }
    
    $data = get_enfold_pagination_data();
    $current_page = $data['current'];
    
    if ($current_page > 1) {
        $prev_page = $current_page - 1;
        $prev_url = ($prev_page === 1) ? 
                   get_permalink() : 
                   add_query_arg('avia-element-paging', $prev_page, get_permalink());
                   
        return '<link rel="prev" href="' . esc_url($prev_url) . '" />' . PHP_EOL;
    }
    
    return false;
});

/**
 * Fix next link for Enfold pagination
 */
add_filter('wpseo_next_rel_link', function($link) {
    if (!is_enfold_paginated_page()) {
        return $link;
    }
    
    $data = get_enfold_pagination_data();
    $current_page = $data['current'];
    $max_pages = $data['max'];
    
    if ($current_page < $max_pages) {
        $next_page = $current_page + 1;
        $next_url = add_query_arg('avia-element-paging', $next_page, get_permalink());
        
        return '<link rel="next" href="' . esc_url($next_url) . '" />' . PHP_EOL;
    }
    
    return false;
});

/**
 * Also fix first page navigation (when no pagination parameter is present)
 */
add_action('wp_head', function() {
    // Only run on first page (no pagination parameter)
    if (is_enfold_paginated_page() && !isset($_GET['avia-element-paging'])) {
        $data = get_enfold_pagination_data();
        $max_pages = $data['max'];
        
        // Only add next link if we have more than one page
        if ($max_pages > 1) {
            $next_url = add_query_arg('avia-element-paging', 2, get_permalink());
            echo '<link rel="next" href="' . esc_url($next_url) . '" />' . PHP_EOL;
        }
    }
}, 999); // Run late to ensure it doesn't get overridden

Would be greatly appreciated, as this would solve the GSC notifications and let the pagination target to itself.

Kind regards,
Joost