Today Google has two new updates. One, Google brings continuous scroll to desktop results. Second, they announced the rollout of the second Google Helpful Content Update for December 2022.
Here are additional updates and details about the two:
December 2022 Helpful Content Update
Google confirmed another helpful content update would start to roll out across search results. It started on December 5th and will take up to two weeks to complete.
In an announcement on Twitter, Google states:
The Dec. 2022 helpful content update was released Dec. 5, starting to become more visible today & will take about two weeks to fully roll out. It improves our classifier & works across content globally in all languages. Our help page explains more: https://t.co/MS7hbcBTsp
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 6, 2022
This update is meant to help improve the helpful content system Google introduced in August.
Google’s helpful content system aims to reward web pages created with a purpose for individuals rather than search engines. Its purpose is to elevate content that adds unique value to the web.
Continuous Scroll
Google first brought continuous scroll to mobile search back in October 2021. However, this roll out lets the same functions apply for desktop as well in search engines. Continuous scroll is similar to infinite scroll but it does not go on infinitely, it stops after a few pages or so – which is why Google does not call it infinite scroll but rather continuous scroll.
“Now, when you scroll down you’ll continue to find relevant results so that you can discover new ideas. When you reach the bottom of a search results page, up to six pages of results will be automatically shown until you see a “More results” button if you wish to continue further.,” Google noted.
This can help encourage users to scroll more past just the first few results and pages. This may impact your Search Console data from searchers scrolling more or less.
