How to do pagination with query?

Question

Search Engine Optimization

Interested in everything in terms of SEO.
Pagination of news/articles like /smeshno?page=2
1. What are the pitfalls of using query string?
2. Where to canonicalize all pages? On itself, i.e. including query /smeshno?page=2, or just /smeshno
3. Is it all one page for Google? How does he even understand query?

Answer 1

All pagination pages should have rel="canonical" on the first page /
smeshno "Header - Page N"
Page /smeshno?page=1 should redirect to /smeshno
If any plain text is used on the first page, then it should not be on pagination pages
You can add rel="prev" and rel="next"