A Chrome extension may be responsible for apparent Google results scroll features, but infinite scroll could be coming soon - and marketers may like the implications of that.

Marketers know it's important to optimize their sites to come out on top of search results, but what would it do for brands' visibility if it was possible for users to find the top twenty – or even fifty – results without having to click to a new page? A new video shows a scroll feature that allows users to find infinite answers to Google queries without navigating away from a previous results page.

In a YouTube video entitled Google Pagination Elimination posted by "rustybrick," one searcher shows how he is able to continuously scroll through multiple pages of Google results. Each page is set apart by a thick black border, and as he moves toward the bottom of his screen view, the scroll bar gets smaller, revealing that there is more content to see.

TheNextWeb.com reports this is not Google's feature, but instead a feature for Chrome, known as FastestChrome, that allows for speedy web-browsing. The tool automatically loads the next page when a user reaches the end of one. Still, many wonder if Google will be making its own similar offering soon.

This scrolling feature is similar to the company's updates to Google Images pages unveiled last summer. Multiple pages' worth of images can be viewed without ever clicking on to a new results page.

If search results follow Images' suit, brands can have the opportunity to be more visible in search results no matter where they rank, which should be good news for marketers. As Brafton has reported, nearly half of searchers are more inclined to click on a result if the sponsoring business appears multiple times within a results page.

Even if the distinction between unique results pages blurs, companies should still strive to make it to the top of web results in case consumers get tired of scrolling. Businesses that want to make it to the top will need to get aggressive; Econsultancy's State of Search Engine Marketing Report predicts that SEO spend will exceed $16 billion by the end of 2010 – a 14 percent increase over 2009.

 

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.