Infinite Scrolling in On-Page Search Results

[LeahHutcheon]

We have a website being built that will effectively function like an e-commerce site. When customers search within the site, we will display the results (sometimes hundreds).

We were thinking of implementing infinite scrolling, but with so many results which all function as links to product pages, would this look funny i.e. having too many onpage links? Would the links at the bottom pretty much just be ignored (which is fine) or would they bring disrepute to the results further toward the top of the page?

Thanks!

[ReferralCandy]

From a UX perspective, infinite scrolling will only work on certain type of sites (e.g. sites with lots of user-generated content that are short and concise). If users are expecting a never-ending list of info, such as Twitter, Facebook, this will be a good idea.

However, for an ecommerce store, infinite scrolling may not be ideal. What the end-users want is to obtain the most appropriate result, rather than a variety of results. Using infinite scrolling in this case will be counter-productive instead. Users may be put off by irrelevant results and may feel difficult controlling their experience on your store, amongst many other reasons.

There are reasons why Google has not implemented infinite scrolling for search results yet, and you should take these into account. Here's an article that may be useful to you: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/reach-a-definite-logical-end-using-infinite-scrolling/64008/

[LeahHutcheon]

Thanks very much, it was very interesting. It seems like it isn't too much of an issue, or at least, we can make it a non-issue, and it's whatever we think would be best from a design/UX perspective.

[FedeEinhorn]

Philip,

There's been a question similar to yours a few weeks ago, I suggest you check it out, it might respond your question as well:

http://moz.com/community/q/best-way-to-break-down-paginated-content