Google announced yesterday that it is discontinuing the continuous scroll feature on its search engine, both for desktop and mobile platforms. The feature, which automatically loaded more search results as users scrolled down the page, will be replaced with the traditional pagination bar at the bottom of search results pages.
This change marks a reversal of a relatively recent update, with continuous scroll having been introduced for mobile devices in October 2021 and later expanded to desktop in December 2022. The decision to revert to the classic pagination model is based on Google’s findings that the continuous scroll did not significantly improve user satisfaction or search experience.
According to a Google spokesperson, the change is aimed at “serving search results faster on more searches, instead of automatically loading results that users haven’t explicitly requested.” The company believes that this move will improve the overall search experience by making it faster and more efficient for users to find the information they need.
Starting today, desktop users will see the familiar “Next” button at the bottom of the search results page, while mobile users will see a “More results” button. These buttons will allow users to manually navigate to the next page of search results.
The return to pagination is expected to have implications for website owners and SEO professionals. With continuous scroll, websites that didn’t rank on the first page of search results might have received more traffic as users scrolled down. Now, these websites might see a decrease in traffic as users will have to actively choose to navigate to the next page.
Google has not yet announced an exact date for when the continuous scroll feature will be removed from mobile search results, but it is expected to happen in the coming months.
