Each year, digital marketing platforms find new ways to develop the experiences for their users. Whether it’s new updates and features to social media, Google AdWords or Google search, new things emerge for us users to enjoy. And, this month was no different as Google announced the latest trial – continuous scrolling on Google search for mobiles.
While many would not notice the change, for those who would, this new update could be great for some and somewhat significant for those working in the digital marketing industry, as businesses could potentially have to adjust their strategies to work alongside this new update.
“Today, we’re making browsing search results more seamless and intuitive with the introduction of continuous scrolling on mobile devices. Now, when you reach the bottom of a search results page on your phone, the next set of results will automatically load with relevant information.”
Since the start of October, Google has begun trialling this new user experience for US mobile users. This change has come at the right time for many mobile users as so many other digital platforms already use some type of continuous scrolling method. In recent years we saw Instagram’s constant scroll that once users viewed updates from their social followers, their feed would continue to show relevant content they deem you would like. When it comes to continuous scrolling, the matter of fact is for user experience; it can very well work and become very beneficial.
“While you can often find what you’re looking for in the first few results, sometimes you want to keep looking. In fact, most people who want additional information tend to browse up to four pages of search results. With this update, people can now seamlessly do this, browsing through many different results, before needing to click the “See more” button.”
Though this will be a great addition to user experience, the question still stands for those in digital marketing. Although Google hasn’t addressed anything regarding the effects of digital marketing, we can reasonably be sure that there won’t be an impact on Google AdWords. However, for SEO, comments have varied, with some highlighting nothing will change, but on the other hand, page ranking could become redundant.
Whilst there has been no comment about the impact on SEO this new feature could have, from the first visual look, it seems the only effect would be those ranking on page 2 and onwards. The continuous scroll would seemingly enable more people to view content that would have been on lower pages making it ideal for sites that have never ranked for the first page. For those already on the first page, the truth is, it doesn’t seem as there is no positive or negative outcome.
Although one, we can highlight that we hope from users, is the earlier you are positioned, the better you would be seen. But, for now, all we can do is wait and see what this continuous scroll will provide for our website(s).
