Google retires rel=prev/next, rise of load more and infinite scroll?

[dethfire]

This tweet is causing a lot of confusion, but it's still an official message from Google web team

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As we evaluated our indexing signals, we decided to retire rel=prev/next. Studies show that users love single-page content, aim for that when possible, but multi-part is also fine for Google Search. Know and do what's best for your users!

This means XF should implement "infinite scroll option" for forum list and posts. Obviously that is difficult with threads and forums with thousands of posts in a thread. Perhaps a load more button is the best route or give the admin the choice.

 

[jmurrayhead]

It makes sense as more and more people are browsing via mobile devices. They are already swiping up to scroll through content, why would they want to break that motion to tap a button when they can keep doing what they were to load more content?

 

[dutchbb]

They retired this years ago without making it public.

Google's Advice On Pagination & Page Series Post rel=next and rel=prev

As you know, Google told us they just realized that rel=next and rel=prev is no longer supported for the past year or so. Yea, I know. So now what? How do you ensure Google can find your paginated content? How do you communicate to Google a series of pages is part of a set? Mihai Aperghis...

www.seroundtable.com

And you don't have to change anything.

Google's rel=prev/next Messaging: Nothing Has Changed

Google keeps saying the same thing over and over again regarding their communication around the rel=prev/next blunder. Simply that nothing has changed, to do pagination just like you always have been

www.seroundtable.com

 

[Jake B.]

It makes sense as more and more people are browsing via mobile devices. They are already swiping up to scroll through content, why would they want to break that motion to tap a button when they can keep doing what they were to load more content?

I'd imagine a lot of people also wouldn't want to have to swipe up through potentially hundreds of pages worth of posts to get to a specific point, so there would need to be something to jump further as well

 

[dethfire]

I'd imagine a lot of people also wouldn't want to have to swipe up through potentially hundreds of pages worth of posts to get to a specific point, so there would need to be something to jump further as well

Postid linking should still work. There could be a post count threshold set to switch to load more button. In general I like load more button better. I think there is little harm in SEO too since Google rarely ranks anything other than the first page well, that goes for forums thread list pages too.

 

[Claverhouse]

God, Infinite Scroll is awful. Load More only slightly less annoying.

I never go back to Infinite Scroll sites. Who wants to scan endless pages choking up memory to read one post ?