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 1 month, 1 week 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

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the follow-up and good to hear that the code fixes it. I would assume that this could be implemented natively to adhere to SEO best practices, through plug-ins such as Yoast/RankMath.

Do you have any insight in when this could be implemented or if this could be a scope for you guys?

Kind regards,
Joost

Hi Mike,

You may close this thread. If I have any additional questions in the future, I will let you know.

Kind regards,
Joost