Why Infinite Scroll is Bad News for SEO

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Aug 2, 2024 / by
Why Infinite Scroll is Bad News for SEO

We’ve all become accustomed, in the social media age, to the concept of the infinite scroll. It’s why so many of us are addicted to our phones, after all. However, while websites and platforms that allow users to continuously load content (infinitely) is great for the users and helps keep them perpetually engaged, there are several pitfalls behind that sleek exterior that can pose significant challenges for us SEO experts.

Here, we’ve put together 5 of those challenges that you might want to consider if you’re looking to “go infinite” with your own site.

1. Crawling Issues

Search engine crawlers, such as Googlebot, face serious difficulties when dealing with infinite scroll. These crawlers are designed to follow links and navigate through paginated content. Infinite scroll, however, continuously loads content as the user scrolls down, without changing the URL. This can prevent crawlers from indexing all the content on a page, leading to incomplete indexing and potentially lower rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs)​.

2. Page Load Speed

Infinite scroll can negatively impact page load times, especially on slower internet connections. As more content loads dynamically, it increases the page’s load time, which is a critical factor for SEO. Google considers page speed as one of its ranking factors, and slower pages can result in lower search rankings​.

3. Content Organization and URL Structure

Proper content organisation and a clear URL structure are essential for SEO. Infinite scroll lacks distinct URLs for individual pieces of content, making it harder for users and search engines to link to specific parts of a page. This can hinder the ability to rank specific pieces of content for relevant keywords, reducing overall SEO effectiveness​.

4. User Experience and Engagement Metrics

While infinite scroll can keep users engaged longer on a site, it can also lead to lower engagement with individual pieces of content. Users might scroll through content without fully engaging with any single piece, leading to higher bounce rates and lower time-on-page metrics, which are important indicators for search engines when assessing page quality​.

5. Lack of Pagination Benefits

Traditional pagination allows users to navigate through content in a structured manner, with clear boundaries between pages. This structure helps in distributing link equity across multiple pages, enhancing the SEO value of each page. Infinite scroll, by contrast, consolidates content into one long page, making it difficult to distribute link equity effectively​.

Best Practices for Implementing Infinite Scroll

If you still feel that infinite scroll is necessary for your website design and is something you feel your users would really benefit from, here are some best practices to mitigate its negative impact on SEO:

  1. Implement Crawlable Pagination: Use a combination of infinite scroll and traditional pagination. Ensure that search engines can access and crawl all the content by providing a fallback pagination system.
  2. Unique URLs for Each Section: Generate unique URLs for different sections of the infinite scroll. This can help with better indexing and allow users to share specific sections of the content.
  3. Optimise Page Load Speed: Implement lazy loading for images and videos to improve load times and enhance user experience without compromising on speed.
  4. Use Structured Data: Apply structured data to help search engines understand the content and structure of your pages better, improving the chances of higher ranking.

By addressing these issues, you should be able to maintain the benefits of infinite scroll while ensuring your SEO efforts are not compromised. For more insights and assistance with SEO and web marketing, consider reaching out to us today​.

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