Google drops continuous scroll in Search, saying it didn't lead to significantly higher user satisfaction and that pagination enables serving results faster
Google Search will stop its continuous scroll user experience where Google loads more results as you scroll past the first page of the search results.
Search Engine LandBarry Schwartz
Context & Ripple Effects
Google is unwinding a search-interface change that began with continuous scrolling on US mobile results and later expanded through the desktop rollout. The reversal matters because it ties a visible product-design decision to two operating criteria: user satisfaction and result-serving speed.
Search users will return to page-by-page result navigation instead of automatically receiving additional results while scrolling.
Google can serve result pages with less of the additional loading associated with continuous scroll, which it says enables faster delivery without a meaningful satisfaction loss.
Second-order effects
Publishers and SEO teams will need to reassess how visibility and traffic behave beyond the first results page, since users must again make an explicit choice to continue.
The change gives Google a simpler performance baseline for Search result pages, making interface additions easier to judge against speed and satisfaction rather than scroll depth alone.
Third-order effects
If Google continues to prioritize measured utility over engagement-oriented interface conventions, Search design may become more selective about features that preload or extend result sessions.
The reversal underscores that search-result distribution remains controlled by product-interface decisions as well as ranking systems, leaving publishers exposed to changes in how users reach deeper results.
The trend: Google Search is increasingly treating speed and demonstrated user value—not familiar feed-style engagement patterns—as the threshold for retaining interface features.
@Techmeme — Well, duh. It sucked. — The deeper you scroll in Google Search the sooner you realize you are seeing Google's AI hallucination of what Taboola, Outbrain, and utterly non sequitur search results might look like if mashed up together in a fever dream of monetizatio…
Starting with desktop and mobile is next (soon). I feel like this is tied to how AI overviews trigger (but that's just my initial thought). “Google said this change is to allow the search company to serve the search results faster on more searches, instead of automatically
Continuous scroll allows everyone to be on page one. We prefer to crush your spirit. It's far more humiliating to be on page 6. Pagination in search allows this ✅
Oh wow, this sort of fascinates me. Continuous scrolling helped with clicks to unpaid search results but I guess Google doesn't care anymore? Return to old paginated SERP makes sense with GenAI-search. https://searchengineland.com/ ...
Saving on them tech resources. Feels to me, the pagination was already decided as a solution which saves resources and also help minimize choice fatigue years ago. Then years gone by, they forgot these lessons, went on a roadtip to infinite scroll and full circle back.