Google is reversing its search engine by ending infinite scrolling on the results page. Finally, we will once again have the right to good old pagination, like before!
Gone are the days when Google search only offered around ten results per page before you had to click on the “Next” button or select one of the results pages! Indeed, in 2021, the Internet giant adapted to changing search methods, particularly for Internet users increasingly accustomed to scroll infinite – the act of vertically scrolling the content of a screen using your mouse or finger – with TikTok and Instagram. He therefore set up, first on smartphones and then on computers, continuous scrolling for search results. In total, the user could scroll through the equivalent of six pages of results without any effort, after which they had to click on the “See more” button. A procedure that was intended to be much faster and more intuitive. Obviously, this was not such a good idea since Google decided to backtrack.
Google Search: return to good old pagination
As a spokesperson announced to Search Engine Land, Google has decided to put an end to the infinite scrolling of its results to return to more traditional pagination. Thus, scrolling began to bow out on Tuesday June 25 on the desktop version, and it will be the same in the coming months on the mobile version. We will therefore find at the bottom of the page an encrypted pagination and a button to display the rest. On mobile, it will be a “More results” button, and “Next” on computer.
Google justifies this change by the fact that pagination allows it to provide results “faster for more searches, instead of automatically loading results that searchers didn’t explicitly request”. Additionally, automatic loading of results did not “significantly increased Google search satisfaction”. In short, back to safe values.
This change appears to be minimal, but should nevertheless have consequences in terms of page referencing, given that the Internet user generally tends to stop at the proposals on page 1, or even, at most, on the page 2. This therefore reinstates a psychological barrier for the Internet user, which prevents them from searching further, and will be felt harshly for websites relegated after the first page. On the other hand, the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Posts and Press Distribution (Arcep) will be happy! She actually classified infinite scrolling as a “attention capture strategy”, a practice which “contributes to increasing the environmental footprint of digital services” increasing “the time spent on the page, and therefore the weight of the latter”. It’s always a catch!