Infinite Scroll with "Load More" linking to Pagination?

[ichthyous]

Hello Webmasterworlders,

I am putting up a new WordPress site and the developer has implemented an infinite scroll on some of the category pages to load the custom posts. The problem is that I switched developers recently and the second one doesn't agree with the first one on best practice. The first one designed an infinite scroll to load ALL the posts on the first page of the category, which means a lot more links on one page but no need for Google to jump to page 2, 3, etc to index the rest of the content.

The second dev took over and "fixed" the first one's work while I was away...he made the load more button link to a new page entirely. So in effect the second method merges traditional pagination with lazy loading. The user can keep scrolling all the content on one page without clicking on pagination links, but Google will read until the last post, then it hits the load more button linking to page 2...for example:

mysite.com/photos/category/subcategory/
mysite.com/photos/category/subcategory/page/2/ - Only accessible from one link on the load more button at bottom of page 1
mysite.com/photos/category/subcategory/page/3/ - Only accessible from one link on the load more button at bottom of page 2
mysite.com/photos/category/subcategory/page/4/ - Only accessible from one link on the load more button at bottom of page 3

There are about 75 links per page including the header, but about 25 are nofollowed. So I would like your opinions about whether the first type or the second type of infinite scroll is better for getting content indexed and ranking in Google. Thanks!

[raseone]

If you're providing traditional pagination as an alternative or add-on to the infinite scroll then i would suggest to just make sure all the urls are consistent. That should get google indexing out of the equation so you can focus on the most comfortable user experience. Then you can judge for yourself which approach is better based on your particular page content.

Since you have a limited number of items per page it doesn't sound like the infinite scroll itself would create any ridiculous situations. It seems to me like google would react basically the same way with or without the "load more" button. It depends on the urls in your particular implementation.

Someone please point out if im wrong since this is something I too am working with lately.

[aristotle]

raseone wrote:
Then you can judge for yourself which approach [ infinite scroll or pagination ] is better.

In my opinion you should avoid both of them. You will nearly always be able to do so if you design your site's basic structure properly and choose your page topics judiciously.

[raseone]

I actually sorta agree in this case... but obviosly there is often a need for some sort of pagination. Personally in this particular case i would probably not paginate at all and just let there be 75 items on a page... But thats not what he asked about.

[tangor]

Let's not over think this. YouTube (a google property) uses the Show More in their listings. Call it pagination on demand if you like, but it remains an infinite scroll nonetheless. Just take a look at the source code.

[tangor]

Conversely, a true infinite scroll has no pagination, period.

[aristotle]

tangor wrote:
YouTube (a google property) uses the Show More in their listings.

Just because google uses a technique doesn't make it a good technique. You should design your site according to your own standards, which should be much higher than google's standards.

[ichthyous]

In my opinion you should avoid both of them. You will nearly always be able to do so if you design your site's basic structure properly and choose your page topics judiciously.

Not in this case Aristotle, this is an image database so there are thousands of images. I have set up the categories to be as specific as possible but I am actually reducing the number of fixed topic categories overall and allowing users to browse through more images at one time.

This thread hasn't really shed much light on my original question unfortunately...just a lot of opinion as to whether infinite scroll is bad or good. Perhaps it really requires seeing the underlying source code to make any real assessment. I took a look and it does seem to break the posts up into separate pages, each with ten posts. I will try to increase that number to let's say 25 posts per page and lower the number of pages in the paginated series. One thing that worries me is that the infinite scroll only has one link at bottom to the next page. So google will have to index the second page to find a link to page three at bottom, or index page three to find a link to page four at bottom. In order to place links to all the pages at bottom of every page custom coding would be required. Also, the links don't seem to be visible to the viewer, only to Google. The only thing the user sees is a load more button with some sort of JS code. That might cause problems as "hidden content"?

[aristotle]

Not in this case Aristotle, this is an image database so there are thousands of images.

So you're saying that there's absolutely no way at all to organize the images into categories, subcategories, etc, down to the level of stand-alone pages?

[ichthyous]

They are organized into categories, subcategories and sub-sub categories. Some of the cats or subcats have multiple pages. The overall effect of organizing content this way has been:

A) I used to rank well for many categories and subcategory topics, but that has been diminishing for years. It's simply not plausible anymore to rank highly across so many terms, although I still do surprisingly well.
B) The visitors get tired and give up when faced with so many choices and difficulty in navigating through page after page. Less content viewed means fewer sales for me.

Seeing that Google has been narrowing down the number of topic visits to my site for a few years now, and my traffic is maybe 40% of what it used to be 3-4 years ago I've decided to do what is best for the visitor and not pander to Google so much.

I correct my own statement above -

"Also, the links don't seem to be visible to the viewer, only to Google. The only thing the user sees is a load more button with some sort of JS code. That might cause problems as "hidden content"?"

I changed the infinite load to the load more button, so users have to click on the button to keep loading content now...that button actually links to the paginated page url

[morpheus83]

I am in support of traditional pagination as well but even the big names - Mashable (can think of it now) have been using it since a while now.

[Robert Charlton]

ichthyous, are you using much descriptive text on your pages? As refined as Google may or may not be able to discriminate among images, I'm repeatedly seeing that images appear to be ranking in large part because the text content of their pages rank.

To a degree, the exception might be if you target terms like "stock photos" of widgets, rather than either just plain widgets or widget photos... assuming ie, that these are for sale.

Regarding infinite scroll, though the scrolling is perhaps useful for browsing for those who don't know what they want, you are effectively eliminating a lot of the structure... aka "pages"... by which a site ranks, ie, page titles, granular descriptive text, and internal nav. I think to a degree you might also be allowing yourself to avoid some of the hard work of classification, though I don't know that.

Google Images doesn't have the same ranking concerns that you do, so I think emulating it is at least partially a mistake. I'd keep the best of both worlds... perhaps allow limited scrolling in your category and subcategory pages, but still maintain the kind of structure you had before. I myself don't generally find that Google Image search is a very satisfactory user experience... but most stock photo sites are worse.

My guess is that the gradual deterioration of ranking you describe is Panda decay over time. I don't think scrolling is going to solve that, unless it helps users find what they want faster than other arrangements. Do you have features like light boxes, etc, which allow users to collect selected images and compare them? That, off the top of my head, is what a stock photo site should be aiming for. Also, the competition in online photography now has become formidable... so your shots have to be very good. I'd be ruthless about editing your photos down to work that is exceptionally good.

While I understand that variety is the name of the game in stock photos, I think also that unless a shot provides distinctly different layout possibilities for an art director, or is exceptionally good on its own, it may serve more as filler than as something customers want to see. This kind of situation could well be exascerbated by scrolling, particularly because the back-button doesn't work, and because it's difficult to get back to the same spot where you were before. So, browsing, while you at first think is being enhanced by infinite scroll, ends up becoming more of a chore and less a good tool for finding the right photographs.

PS: I also remember from way back that you were using tag pages as categories. IMO, this produces a lot of internal duplication, and can be frustrating for users unless you fill those tags with good, unique content. Most tag sites use way too many tags, so the user doesn't find them very fulfilling. Tag pages are often a classic cause of Panda.

[ichthyous]

Hi Robert, see responses below

are you using much descriptive text on your pages? As refined as Google may or may not be able to discriminate among images,

Each image resides on its own page, which has a unique title, description, size and edition options, photo ID, category links, tags, and additional text which is found on each page regarding framing, licensing etc. The description can be made as long as needed, now they are fairly short.

"Regarding infinite scroll, though the scrolling is perhaps useful for browsing for those who don't know what they want, you are effectively eliminating a lot of the structure... aka "pages"... by which a site ranks, ie, page titles, granular descriptive text, and internal nav. I think to a degree you might also be allowing yourself to avoid some of the hard work of classification, though I don't know that.

Google Images doesn't have the same ranking concerns that you do, so I think emulating it is at least partially a mistake. I'd keep the best of both worlds... perhaps allow limited scrolling in your category and subcategory pages, but still maintain the kind of structure you had before"

Yes all the categories and subcategory pages have been ported to the new site, and the scrolling happens only after the visitor navigates to the category. What had been eliminated is the need to click on a series of page links to advance. Sorry my previous response to Aristotle was somewhat unclear in that the cats and subcas remain, although I am paring down some sub subcategories and converting them to tag pages.

"My guess is that the gradual deterioration of ranking you describe is Panda decay over time. I don't think scrolling is going to solve that, unless it helps users find what they want faster than other arrangements. Do you have features like light boxes, etc, which allow users to collect selected images and compare them? That, off the top of my head, is what a stock photo site should be aiming for. Also, the competition in online photography now has become formidable... so your shots have to be very good. I'd be ruthless about editing your photos down to work that is exceptionally good."

The great majority of the loss in traffic was all in one shot, when Google changed image search design to stop referring searches to sites. Image Sites like mine saw a 80% drop in traffic from GI, which was half my total traffic. The rest could be panda but you hit the nail on the head that the number of sites has exploded in the last 6 years. It's just not possible to retain rank across as many categories and subcats as in the past.
I have made an effort to merge all duplicate pages from my old site into single pages with unique urls. The old site had up to 4 duplicate pages for each image entered into multiple categories. I changed each page slightly so always avoided huge penalties, but it's time to restructure and merge. I suspect that redirecting so many pages to one new page might actually concentrate the value and the new unique pages might perform better. I am not making any effort to retain old urls for actual image pages, that would be a massive job to analyze which url performs the best and retain that url intact. If I have time I will do it before the site goes live.

This is not a stock photo site, it's fine art photography which is also sold through partner galleries around the world. The price point is quite high, so a luxury item. The images can be licensed for limited commercial use as well, and a light box has been included in the site. I am also having the devs rework the native WP search feature as that is critical in finding images. A related posts plug in allows me to add linked thumbs to related images throughout the site as well.