Infinite scroll (jQuery's "jScroll"?)

[csdude55]

As I'm rebuilding my sites, I'm strongly considering setting up an infinite scroll instead of paginating. Unless you guys tell me otherwise, I'm planning to use jScroll:

[jscroll.com...]

But let's say that the user scrolls down through 5 pages worth of data (ie, 1 page that's 20000px long instead of 5 pages that are 4000px long). Will Analytics / Adsense see this as 5 pageviews, or just 1?

Assuming it's just 1, will that negatively impact the ad value?

Similarly, what was originally the top banner on the 2nd page will now be the 3rd banner on the first page. Have you guys noticed whether this has a negative impact on its value?

[NickMNS]

I remember hearing John Muller talk about this in a recent webmaster central office hour hangout. I think it was in December.

I believe that what was said was that you should have unique url for each block of content. So that when the new page section loads the url changes, and if someone types the url into the browser it would take them directly to that part of the page.

As for Adsense, with the 3 ad limit lifted you do not need to worry about that anymore. As for the ad value, I have no idea but I imagine that a unique url may help the situation, since it will be more like the conventional situation.

I have no experience with the infinite scroll but I am considering it on my current project to help speed up the loading of very heavy pages. By only loading above the fold content when the page is first called and then loading the rest once the user scroll down a bit.

[csdude55]

I have no experience with the infinite scroll but I am considering it on my current project to help speed up the loading of very heavy pages. By only loading above the fold content when the page is first called and then loading the rest once the user scroll down a bit.

That's basically my plan, too. Many of my sites have message boards and classifieds, both of which paginate after 20 threads/ads. So naturally, page 2 gets a lot less traffic, and page 3 is virtually dead.

I'm hoping that this will encourage people to just scroll down and view more "pages" without actually clicking to paginate.

[ambt]

You can call me 'old-school' but I really don't like endless scrolling. If you click on some internal link on such a long page, and then hit the "back" button, it can be a pain in the neck. The whole content has to be reloaded. Sometimes it is cached in the browser, and nowadays it's not so bad as it used to be, but I still don't like it.

Long, long time ago, mankind used paper scrolls to write down knowledge. Then something amazing was invented: a book! With PAGINATION! And suddenly many things became easier, when things could be found on a specific page.

What happens now, some wizards tell us that going back to scrolls is innovative! I don't think so. I prefer a paginated book to a long scroll with the same content :)

[birdbrain]

I have to fully agree with ambt.

There are, unfortunately, a plethora of
designer dorkheads out there, with their
heads up their arses, creating an endless
stream of banal "arty farty" nonsense.

Of course, the mindless majority cannot
wait to get their hands on the latest trend.

I am reminded of this cautionary little tale...

The Emperor's New Clothes [andersen.sdu.dk]

birdbrain

[csdude55]

Not to stray too far from the topic, but haven't you noticed that web design has been cyclical, and sometimes contradictory?

In the beginning, we designed primarily for 640x480, and 800x600 was an afterthought. Then along came 1024x768, so a lot of sites had 2 completely different layouts: one for high res, and one for low res.

Now, mobile comes along and we're right back to dealing with low res again. So just like in the mid-90s, a lot of sites have 2 completely different layouts: one for high res, and one for low res (mobile).

I remember when Flash first came out, and Java applets were taking off. I kept telling clients that using them was a bad idea because Flash and Java didn't come pre-installed in user's browsers, and no one would want to download a separate program just to use their site.

Now, both have virtually died way, but replacing them... apps! Except now, everyone WANTS to download an app to use your site! If you don't have that, somehow you're passe.

In the beginning, I would make longer pages and minimize the number of clicks that it took to get anywhere, knowing that people on low-speed connections wouldn't keep clicking to the next page to get to the end. It wasn't always beautiful, but it reflected in the results.

Then high speed grew, and suddenly it was "cool" to have more and more pages. That never caught on to me, though, maybe because I'm 100 years old. For example, I have WebmasterWorld set to show me as many posts on a page as possible, so I don't have to keep clicking on Next.

Now, the trend is going backwards... people want long pages again, so they don't have to keep clicking next. Especially on their mobile device that might be slower again.

For me, personally, I think it will increase the number of pages viewed, and the user will be happier that they're not missing out on content. I can appreciate the issue with clicking and then losing their spot, though... maybe I'll change some of the intro-links to set a cookie, so that when they come back they'll automatically scroll back to where they were. Food for thought, anyway.

[birdbrain]

Hi there csdude55,

so is your intended scrolling page going to be reliant on Javascript?

Will it follow these guidlines?


Progressive enhancement:

1. You write your page content as if both CSS and JavaScript are off.
   
2. You write CSS to style the page the way you want it to look when
   JavaScript is off.
   
3. You write additional CSS to change the way you want the page to
   look when JavaScript is turned on.
   
4. You write CSS for the way you want the page to look when specific
   JavaScript commands are supported by the browser.
   
5. You add a few lines of JavaScript to the head of the page to add
   the necessary classes to the html tag for the styles you wrote in
   steps 3 and 4 to be applied.
   

birdbrain

[tangor]

What is the difference between endless scroll and clicking "next"?

Nothing. Both will irritate the user. However "next" will at least go "back".

Then again, if the endless scroll is (choosing an arbitrary number that would irritate me) 30 or less, then a single presentation as scroll might be good value return on effort to create.

[csdude55]

Guys, I'm about to throw my computer out the window.

After about a week of working on this, I've finally come to the conclusion that Adsense simply doesn't allow it. I can get anything else to load using jScroll, but just not the Adsense banners, no matter what I try.

So there's a week's worth of work wasted. And it looked so GOOD, too! :'-(

Hopefully, posting this can save some future coder from wasting their time on it. I really need for Adsense to get with the times.