Infinite scrolling and SEO

Infinite scrolling creates a seamless browsing experience, but it can affect search performance if not implemented carefully. In particular, it may impact Google’s Core Web Vital “Cumulative Layout Shift” (CLS) and how search engines crawl your site.

How infinite scrolling affects layout stability (CLS)

When you use infinite scrolling, new content loads as visitors reach the bottom of the page. If that content pushes visible elements down — such as a footer or call to action — the page may shift unexpectedly.

These unexpected movements are measured by Google’s Core Web Vital called “Cumulative Layout Shift” (CLS).

If important elements visibly move while someone is reading or about to click, this can:

• Create a poor user experience

• Increase your CLS score

• Potentially impact your search rankings

To keep your layout stable:

• Avoid placing footers or important sections directly below dynamically loading content.

• Make sure newly loaded content does not push visible elements unexpectedly.

• Test your site in Google Search Console and review the Core Web Vitals report regularly.

If your layout remains stable while content loads, infinite scrolling can work well without harming performance.

How infinite scrolling affects crawling

Infinite scrolling relies on JavaScript to load additional content. Some search engine crawlers do not execute JavaScript, which means they may not see content that loads dynamically.

This can affect:

• How links are discovered

• How internal links pass value between pages

Googlebot does render JavaScript and loads content within a viewport of approximately 12,000px in height. Framer’s infinite scrolling system takes the viewport into account and loads as many items as fit within that visible space.

Within that range, Google can crawl links as expected. You can check what Google sees by inspecting the page in Google Search Console.

Best practices for SEO with infinite scrolling

To minimize potential SEO limitations:

• Strengthen internal linking: Link related pages together based on topic relevance.

• Add previous and next navigation: Include “Previous” and “Next” navigation on CMS pages. This gives crawlers additional paths and improves user navigation.

• Create an HTML sitemap: In addition to your sitemap.xml, create an HTML sitemap page that lists important links across your website. Link to it from your footer so both users and crawlers can easily access it.

By following these practices, you can provide a seamless scrolling experience while maintaining strong SEO foundations.