Infinite scroll, where new content keeps loading as you scroll down, feels natural on social media. Many websites copied it for their blogs, galleries and product lists. On a business website, though, it often causes more problems than it solves.
Where infinite scroll struggles
People cannot get back to where they were. Click into an item, press back, and you are often returned to the top of a list you had scrolled through for minutes.
The footer becomes unreachable. If more content loads every time you near the bottom, contact details and links in the footer keep slipping away.
There is no sense of progress. Visitors cannot tell how much there is, or how far through they are.
Search engines may miss content. Items that only appear after scrolling are not always found by search engines unless the site also has normal links to them.
Pages get slower. Each batch adds more images and code to the same page, which phones feel first.
When each approach works
Page numbers suit most business websites: blogs, case studies, product ranges. People can see how much there is, jump ahead, share a link to page two and come back to the same place. Each page also has its own address that search engines can follow.
A "load more" button is a good middle ground for galleries and project lists. Visitors stay in control, the footer stays reachable, and nothing loads that nobody asked for.
Infinite scroll fits feeds people browse without a goal, such as social media. It rarely fits a website where visitors are trying to find something specific.
Make long lists easier anyway
Whichever you choose, these help:
- a search box for lists of more than a couple of dozen items;
- filters or categories, so people can narrow things down;
- sensible sorting, such as newest first;
- remembering the position when someone comes back.
What we chose for our own blog
Our blog shows 12 articles per page with page numbers underneath, plus search, categories and tags. Every page has its own address, so it can be shared and found by search engines, and the footer is always one scroll away.
If a long list on your website is getting hard to use, let us know and we can suggest the simplest fix.