Why it matters
Google renders a page in a very tall viewport instead of scrolling, which is not efficient and can miss content; a figure of around 10,000 pixels was said at Search Central Live but is not documented. Content that appears only after scrolling beyond that, or after clicking "load more", stays invisible unless each chunk also has its own URL. Said at Search Central Live: a Google panelist called pagination one of the trickiest things in web development and a switch to infinite scroll or a load-more button risky, depending on what you want to achieve, because Googlebot does not click buttons; without crawlable links to them, Google does not see the further pages at all.
How to meet it
Build load-more and infinite scroll on top of the paginated series (DEV-URL-06): each chunk has a persistent, unique URL that also works on direct load, chunks link to each other with <a href>, and the History API updates the address when a new chunk becomes the main visible element. Trigger loading with an IntersectionObserver, never a scroll listener (DEV-REN-03).
How to test it
With JavaScript disabled, follow the "more" link through every page of a listing. In URL Inspection the rendered HTML of page 1 contains a crawlable link to page 2, and server logs show Googlebot fetching the paginated URLs.
How Regensbot covers it
Decided automatically once Regensbot renders your pages.
Headless Chromium renders the page on an isolated render service, and the raw and the rendered HTML run through the same parsers.
Sources
Google documents03
- 01Fix lazy-loaded contentGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
- 02Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google SearchGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
- 03March 2023 Google SEO office hoursGoogle Search Central (SEO office hours transcript, March 2023) (opens in a new tab)
Claims in the knowledge base06
- D2-C276SourceWhat is Google friendly JavaScriptGoogle's documentation
- D2-C273SourceWhat is Google friendly JavaScriptGoogle's documentation
- D2-C271ConfirmedWhat is Google friendly JavaScriptSaid on stage
- D2-C272UndocumentedWhat is Google friendly JavaScriptSaid on stage
- D1-C114ConsistentQ&ASaid on stage
- D1-C491ConfirmedQ&ASaid on stage
Claim IDs refer to the Search Central Live 2026 knowledge base. The knowledge base (opens in a new tab)
- Confirmed
- Google's documentation states the same thing.
- Consistent
- Google's documentation supports it without stating it.
- Undocumented
- Said or shown at the event, not in the documentation.
- Source
- The claim is the cited document itself.