Has Google continuous scroll impacted organic traffic?

Google released its continuous scroll feature to mobile devices back in October 2021, and more recently to desktop in December last year. But how has this affected organic traffic and the behaviour of people searching on Google?

What is the difference between mobile and desktop scrolling?

Mobile devices and platforms tend to use infinite scrolling. This means that the results will show for as long as you scroll down in search results.

Desktop has continuous scroll. This shows around 60 search results before needing to hit the ‘See more’ button to see more results.

The research conducted found that impressions for websites ranking between 15-20, therefore previously on page two, were starting to get more impressions than they were pre-continuous scroll. This shows that searchers may have not realised they had gone past the top 10 results in search, and that impressions may increase due to this.

Before this feature was released, most searchers wouldn’t browser past page one of Google, however, this means that with continuous scroll your website may get seen if its lower than position 10 of Google.

What does this mean for search marketing?

The biggest major impact for search marketers will be that due to the update in the search results user experience, users behaviour has altered. However, it is still as relevant as ever to have your website ranking within the top three positions to get the most clicks and impressions.

The most important thing to continue to do is to focus on writing useful content and optimising the technical elements of your website to improve its performance in search results.

Search engine optimisation can be a great way to grow your business online. If you’d like to have a chat with our team about SEO, then please get in touch and we can discuss if SEO would be right for your business.

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Jonathon Roberts

Jonathon lives and breathes marketing, boasting a degree in Business Management and Marketing Management and a diverse list of experiences both professional and voluntary. Having grown up in the thick of the digital and social media age, he has been quick to dive into online marketing and search engine optimisation in his career and spare time, spanning such fields as academics, local business and sport.

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