Google made a major change to the mobile search experience, rolling out across the United States. Instead of having to click to page 2, Google has changed the mobile search to just continuously scroll and automatically load more results.
In the announcement, Google says,
“At Google, we’re always exploring new ways to help people find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Earlier this year, we launched a redesign of the Search results page on mobile for a more modern experience that’s easier to scan and navigate. 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.
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.”
This change is currently rolling out across English mobile queries in the United States. No word yet on if it will expand out worldwide or in other languages. But If there’s a positive response to the continuous scroll, it’s highly likely that Google will make it a global change.
The biggest effect is that this changes, at least on mobile, which is crawled first thanks to the Mobile First Index, the phrasing “first page of Google”. This page has already been in flux in recent years with the map pack and paid search ads taking up more and more real estate. So SEO efforts will not focus on getting you to the top 10 organic search results. The next tier looks at the top 25 search results, then 50, and on and on. You will still see a “See More” option, but you will see many more search results before that option gets triggered.
Google says people want more results with more open ended questions showing up on their site. So the new search experience encourages you to dig further than the first page, since less than one percent of searchers ever clicked on page 2 results. In reality, the more results and the longer the scroll, the longer a user is likely to stay on the platform. You see this on more social platforms like TikTok or Facebook where you can scroll through content and feeds for hours.
We will take a look at research in the coming months to see how search trends change because of this and how many people click on “See More” or indeed go further into the search results. Mobile search volume now accounts for more than 50% of searches, so it makes sense that this change rolls out on mobile first.
For SEO’s, check your Search Console reports and analytics to see if your site has changes to impressions and clicks on mobile as a result of this new continuous scrolling. At Boostability, we’ve also changed our reporting dashboard to reflect top 10 keyword rankings rather than page 1 of the results.
Need help with your SEO to make sure you show up in the top 10 search results? Give us a call at Boostability!
