Google has announced that infinite scrolling, implemented in October 2021 on mobile and December 2022 on desktop, will be phased out. This decision marks a return to more traditional pagination.
According to a company spokesperson, this transition began on June 25 for desktop versions and will be extended to mobile in the coming months. Users will therefore find classic encrypted pagination with a “Next” button on desktop and “More results” on mobiles.
Good old encrypted pagination
This change aims to provide search results ” faster for more searches », avoiding the automatic loading of results that Internet users have not specifically requested.
Google also pointed out that automatic loading of results did not lead to higher user satisfaction.
A Google spokesperson explained to the site Search Engine Land : ” We found that autoloading results did not lead to significantly higher Google search satisfaction.
This change will allow us to provide search results faster for more searches. »
For most users, this change should not have a significant impact on their browsing experience.
In general, Internet users are satisfied with the results that first appear on their screen, whether they are on a computer or a smartphone.
However, this change could affect websites that appear outside of the first page of search results.
With infinite scrolling, those pages had a chance to be discovered by users who scrolled through the results. By returning to traditional pagination, those same pages risk a decrease in visibility.
The second page of search results could become even less visited than before, reducing the chances of those pages attracting clicks.
Ending infinite scrolling could also alter the data seen in Search Console, Google’s analytics tool for webmasters. User browsing behavior (number of pages viewed, interaction with search results, etc.) could change.
This return to traditional pagination has been presented as a technical adjustment to improve search performance… but the fact remains that it could have significant implications for weaker referenced websites.