Google Is Killing Infinite Scroll in Search Results

Google is switching back to pagination for its search results, abandoning the continuous scroll feature introduced in 2022 for desktop and 2021 for mobile. The change, effective immediately for desktop users, aims to improve search result loading speeds, Google said, adding that infinite scrolling did not significantly enhance user satisfaction. Mobile users will see the change in coming months.

Not a fan of infinite scroll

[The-Ixian]

It seems that the only reason for infinite scroll to even exist is for attention capture.

Whenever I encounter it, I flee immediately or try to turn it off. It fills me with unease and anxiety. Sort of like how I feel when I am swimming in water where I cannot see the bottom.

Re: Not a fan of infinite scroll

[Starayo]

I hate it so much. When I use twitter, where I've used userscripts to basically delete the 'for you' feed so I only get posts from people I follow chronologically, sometimes I'll open posts to check later or read replies separately, etc. If I click the wrong link or god forbid accidentally close the tab instead of hitting back, I lose my place and it can sometimes take ages to get back to it, and that's assuming it actually loads everything when I scroll quickly, which it often fails to do. Pagination is j

blame javascript and the DOM

[will4]

Once JavaScript and the page DOM gave users the illusion of infinitely long lists, it became a necessary feature otherwise people would lose their lives.

From the Endaevour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

From them appear how small are the real wants of human nature, which we Europeans have increasd to an excess which would certainly appear incredible to these people could they be told it. Nor shall we cease to increase them as long as Luxuries can be invented and riches found for the purchase of them

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[codebase7]

Attention for the first five seconds anyway. Doomscrolling hoping to find a useful result when you have no idea how far into the index you've gone isn't a search you're going to want to repeat. Let alone stay on the site for it show you more ads.

Good riddance.

Fine but what about...

[Sarusa]

How about doing something about the Infinite Shit your results have turned over since Prabhakar Raghavan decreed 5 years ago that search needed to get worse so you could show more ads? Yeah, okay, this is completely rhetorical.

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[Growlley]

personally I feel most of the world think that the dumbiest people alive are american , for various reasons.

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[astone3]

Trump's also part of the much-more-powerful *Russian* crime syndicate...

Will the second page show paid ads?

[marcobat]

It seems to me that they are trying to maximize the chances that users will click on paid ads, maybe optimizing the ads they will show on the second page.

Thank god

[MBGMorden]

Infinite scroll is a stupid idea that just about every web developer had to implement there for a while after the CTO got it in their head that all the cool kids were doing it. Paginated results are more efficient and easier to debug.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with infinite scroll for me is how it ruined find text. I could open how ever many pages suited me and easily search them all one by one. Sure I could scroll down several pages and do a find text but then some pages would unload content right as the search finds a match near the top. The other problem with infinite scroll is that there was usually no indication how much there's to scroll. Paginated results at least shows it could be a few pages or hundreds. And if it's hundreds, I might wan

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[martin-boundary]

If you need to *find* the text with your browser's string search, then the search engine you're using is already broken.

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[Waccoon]

It also breaks scroll bars. I hate it when my reading position jumps all over the place as new content loads in.

Literally the ONLY web-based application I've used in the last few decades that has stable scroll bars with dynamic content is the Steam store. I really can't believe how many web pages and applications can't scroll correctly.

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[mjwx]

Infinite scroll is a stupid idea that just about every web developer had to implement there for a while after the CTO got it in their head that all the cool kids were doing it. Paginated results are more efficient and easier to debug.

This. An aviation news site I read regularly recently changed from infinite scroll to paginated, it's been a huge improvement as it makes it faster to go back and find articles.

No 'buy it now' results

[wyHunter]

Now do 'let's find information, not engage in online shopping' and not return shopping results for (say) dead sea scrolls or something.

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[Pascoea]

How will I find out who's selling dead sea scrolls then?

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[Mononymous]

They're on Facebook Marketplace.

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[Pascoea]

The search on FB Marketplace sucks harder than Google's does.

Poor Google

[ceoyoyo]

Implementing a queue and sliding window was just too tricky for them.

Or maybe they want to make it just a bit harder to scroll past the sponsored links, "People also ask", "Videos", "Music", "Related Searches" and other paid placement hits.

For Once Google Makes The Right Decision

[crunchygranola]

I hate infinite scroll. I have always hated infinite scroll. I will always hate infinite scroll. Killing infinite scroll is a Very Good Thing. Now maybe it will become less popular with other websites -- like the many that force you into scrolling through an indeterminate number of items -- is this a list of 50 items, or 500, or 5000? And if you click on one to see more details, you are back at the top of the infinite scroll. Whoever thought this was a user-friendly design? Probably no one, they just thought "Cool!" BTW, did I mention that I hate infinite scroll?

What's with the hate?

[RitchCraft]

Just a few comments so far and half of them saying infinite scroll was the worst, bad idea, etc.. I welcome ANYTHING that introduces LESS spamming and advertising. With infinite scroll hit page down three times to get to search results that might be more relevant to what you're actually searching for. To hell with that SEO crap at the top.

Re:What's with the hate?

[Fly Swatter]

Ok you find a search result but closed it. Now you want to go back, with pagination you can remember it was half way down the third page; with infinite scroll you can remember it was somewhere down the page and the scrollbar was of useless size and position at the time.

No thanks. BTW if the search results suck just go to another search provider... Yes it is a small help but why keep slamming your face into the Google screen?

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[sconeu]

That's why I always use "open in new tab". I fricking hate infinite scroll as well.

Infinite scroll designed for search addicts.

[Fly Swatter]

...always hoping something better is one line down.

For the rest of us it simply makes returning to a result impossible, pages and relative positions can be remembered - this is impossible when the scrollbar just keeps shrinking.

Infinite scroll like most new features is just there to abuse users for advertisement engagement. At least that is how it feels.

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[Dan East]

...always hoping something better is one line down.

Funny, that's exactly how I feel about your comment. jk

too late

[FudRucker]

i already abandoned google for searches because of advertising and poor search results, too many good alternatives out there in the wild blue yonder to let google control my searches

Really?

[jenningsthecat]

... did not significantly enhance user satisfaction.

It's been a very long time since Google gave a flying fuck about "user satisfaction". Also, talk about faster page loading seems disingenuous. They're holding off loading additional results until the end of the current scroll is reached, so clicking to see more results actually slows the user down. Maybe they're trying to cut down on their own server and pipe bandwidth by not delivering results that the user won't see.

Ahh - I just looked at TFA, and here's another possible reason. FTA: "If you were on page

Great. Now bring back search results.

[istartedi]

n/t, but I have to type something so let's just repeat the title. Great. Now bring back search results.

I love it when stupid fads byte the dust!

[Tablizer]

Infinite scrolling was a stupid fad. For one, it made using Control F almost useless. Second, if you lost your spot you had to start over. Pagination is fine as long as one can control page size (items per page). Better query filtering options also helps so you don't have to manually inspect as much.

Thank god,

[unami]

it is a stupid, user-hostile design anyway.

Thank goodness

[cascadingstylesheet]

"Infinite memory usage" was more like it.

Text search in results?

[Residentcur]

Can you do a text search of the full results of a Google search? This would permit the rare occasion when you need to find a needle gem in the haystack of ads and otherwise useless returns, when looking for an obscure fact about the world or some object or issue. Otherwise, one normally doesn't scroll too far into search results, I agree.

Has nothing to do with "Scrolling" - about Ads

[TheWho79]

By eliminating scrolling, they are eliminating clicks to page two. Effectively boxing in more clicks to ads and Google properties. eg: google gets paid. Regardless of some of the comments here, scroll-to-load-more was a very popular feature. Be careful what you wish for - organic is going to page two people.

All I say

[Bu11etmagnet]

Good riddance!