[nkurz]

Google will not do that because it would cost them a fortune in missed ad impressions and clicks.

This seems unnecessarily constraining. They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic?

Certainly Google is very concerned with click-through on ads, but I'm not sure they'd be losing much if they allowed continuous scrolling. What percentage of their revenue do you think they derive from ads placed on 'next' pages?

And certainly there would be some way that they could integrate more ads with the Ajax loads: adding them to the sidebar as you scroll, or otherwise integrating them with the incrementally added results.

[jacquesm]

> They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic?

That nobody except for a few geeks do it. Just like the 'I feel lucky' button.

> Certainly Google is very concerned with click-through on ads, but I'm not sure they'd be losing much if they allowed continuous scrolling. What percentage of their revenue do you think they derive from ads placed on 'next' pages?

About 32% according to their own statistics. 68% of the clicks (ads or results) are on page 1, the rest on subsequent pages.

Google is working hard to get to the point where 100% of the clicks are done on the first page, then it is a moot point, but a 32% impact to their bottom line is not something they'll do if they don't have to.

Also, yes, they could load that ad again, but I suspect that may not be as effective and would lead to a lot of complaints. A 'quiet' (as in non-animated) page creates a lot of goodwill, switching ads would likely lead to a distraction and therefore diminished user experience.

[nkurz]

Great statistics, thanks! That's much higher than I would have guessed. While I agree that very few people change the default number of results, I would have also guessed that few click through to a second page.

Personally, I don't like the AJAX update approach. I'd much rather that a site just give me a long list of results, and allow me to scroll through them without loading delays. If I could set Google to return 1000 results, it would feel about right.

[jacquesm]

> I'd much rather that a site just give me a long list of results, and allow me to scroll through them without loading delays.

I think that is a balance between server load and user convenience.

On ddg it is already pretty fast, if you aren't in a real hurry it is hardly noticeable and faster than clicking through to a second page.

[JoachimSchipper]

Well, that, and the fact that users really hate pages that are slow to load. (Although most of the loading would happen off-screen, this can still slow down users/other requests/...)

[meese_]

> > They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic?

> That nobody except for a few geeks do it. Just like the 'I feel lucky' button.

Why don't they offer this as an option then, by the same logic?

[jacquesm]

They've talked about that at some length, it is a relic from the early days and even if it costs them money (60 million bucks annually iirc) they feel they should keep it not to upset the users that have gotten used to it being there and occasionally using it.

edit: so much for my memory, it costs them almost twice that, 110 million per year, source:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Im-feeling-lucky-button-costs-Google...