Google Modernizes US Mobile Search Results With Continuous Scrolling (techcrunch.com) 25
Google has announced that it's changing the way search works on mobile devices, initially in the U.S. From a report: Now, when you reach the bottom of a set of search results on your phone, you won't have to tap to go to the next page. Instead, the next set of results will automatically load so you can continuously scroll down to see more information. The change will roll out on the mobile web and will be supported on the Google mobile app for both iOS and Android in the U.S. for most English-language searches for the time being. Because it's a staggered release, you may initially encounter some results which scroll and others that do not.
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Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's like when you're loading Slashdot on your phone and you try to click on a link but you missed it by 1/10 second when it jumped down because it loaded an ad so you ended clicking on something else (sometimes the ad). So you back out, try again, and miss the link again.
Re: *sigh* (Score:3, Informative)
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Infinite scrolling with responsiveness can be fine, no need for pagination that the user has to explicitly advance rather than implicitly through scrolling.
The obnoxious part is when something does so and:
-Has a long load time to load the part that was scrolled to
-Has an insanely narrow pagination to only barely fill the viewport making any scroll a server request that may be agonizingly slow.
I will agree 'infinite scroll' is unbearable when you have an idea of where you want to be in the list (e.g. one vid
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Almost no one looks at page 2 of search results. This removes the barrier between the first and second (and later) pages of search results.
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The word "changes" would be better than "modernizes" and I'll note that newer/different isn't always better. Some notes on TFA:
the continuous scroll doesn’t force you to stop at some arbitrary point in your search then tap a link to move forward
So what and why is pagination a problem? Continuous doesn't allow skipping ahead -- maybe that's something google wants to prevent...? Also, seems like continuous scrolling would take more resources.
The continuous scroll could also give Google more flexibility in terms of ad placement. Instead of limiting ads to the top of a results page, they could be inserted amid the search results as you move down — more like how ads on social networking feeds appear.
They could do this *now*, nothing is preventing Google from putting ads anywhere on a particular page.
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Can't say I've been past the first page of Google in a while (excluding Image Search).
Finally! (Score:3)
Now you won't get any more conspiracy theories and weird misinformation. Can't get to the weird part of the internet if you can't get to page 3 of the search results.
This is the worst design! (Score:2)
Why are they intent on making everything worse?
That continuous scrolling crap is garbage. You can't skip pages and it eats up memory and CPU like crazy. Good luck if you leave a page and then want to go back to a specific spot. Often anything past the beginning pages are never seen because it's too resource intensive to get to that data.
Awful design, just awful. I'm sure Google loves it because it allows them to easily promote whatever they feel like to the top and basically censor everything after that whi
infinite scroll breaks history (Score:5, Insightful)
You're on a page and you trigger the scroll mechanism to see more content. So far so good. Now you click on a link, but whoops you clicked on the wrong one. So you hit the back button. Scroll content all gone. You're right back to the top again, and everything you loaded by persistence hunting the bottom of the page has vanished into the broken history void. Sucks to be you. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Does this happen for everyone else? It certainly happens on my browser, to the point where I barely ever navigate away from an infinite scroll cesspool except by opening a new tab.
Here's the thing. Once you start breaking history in one place, pretty soon there will be no point preserving its honour anywhere else. Google manages to subtly break both de facto and explicit web standards that have served us well since the early 1990s all the time with little direct disclosure of the "edge" cases now buried in an unmarked communal trench.
Also breaks the ability to resume (Score:5, Insightful)
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But I guess everyone's doing it nowadays because when there are pages, it gives people a logical place to stop. But if there's infinitely scrolling, people are less likely to stop, and these sites/apps will keep people's attention longer.
And I guess they don't care about your ability to go back to page 10, since most people don't care about stuff that's that deep - it's either too old or has little relevance.
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And once I start using quotes or site:domain.com or any other advanced searching technique, then Google will show a message saying they've detected suspicious activity and want me to click on the captcha.
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I suspect they'll get it perfect because it's in their best interest to do so. The purpose imo is obviously 1) more opportunity to present ad links into the user's query as the scroll continues, and 2) take advantage of the fact that infinite scrolling is a highly addictive pattern in general.
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I regularly visit art gallery sites. Gallery sites using pages are awesome, as it makes things easy to browse a gallery in chronological order with a fixed number of pictures per page. Nonetheless, there's been a massive problem where artists are abandoning gallery sites in favor of social media, where infinite scrolling is used extensively. This one change alone makes it virtually impossible to browse art, for exactly the reason that you can't skip a fixed number of pages ahead. To make matters worse,
back button (Score:1)
Because modernization.. (Score:3)
Because "Modernization" means "make things suck".
Good job, Google! You have successfully made search su-- err, modernized search!
scroll to the end of time (Score:1)
Whoopee, doom scrolling Google results; that'll give the kids something to do when FB/insta are down. Still won't find what you're looking for.
Now, when are they going to bring back the ability to reatrict results to a time frame (ie: today, past week, month year, custom) on the mobile UI?
At least you could still request desktop site, refine and switch back.
There's another page?!?! (Score:2)
There's a link to the second page of results if you scroll down? Crazy... TIL...
And they won't solve the remaining problem (Score:1)