Month: April 2020

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Googlebot Cannot Scroll; Infinite Scroll Doesn’t Help SEO

I saw a fascinating article in today’s Search Engine Journal: Google’s Martin Splitt Explains Why Infinite Scroll Causes SEO Problems. Read it for some background information, but the bottom line is that Googlebot (the Google web crawler/indexer) does not scroll web pages, which means that any content exposed via infinite scroll is not indexed.

Infinite scroll can also cause other problems: some screenshot browser addons and services have difficulties rendering infinite scroll web pages. It’s easy to love infinite scroll as a user since it gives the illusion of infinite content, but it can be a nightmare for automated services.

The fix: Make sure that all content on a web site can be accessed without using the infinite scroll function. Also, send Google a sitemap so it knows where all the valid URLs are: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en .

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A Google Credit Card?

TechCrunch is covering an upcoming Google product, a debit card under the umbrella of Google Pay. `

Branded credit cards bring in a surprising amount of money – the Apple credit card is projected to earn Apple $1 billion annually with very little risk. I think it’s notable that this is a debit card and not a credit card – a debit card charges purchases against a checking account (in other words, money is there before you make your purchase) while credit card purchases are essentially a short term loan. By making it a debit card, Google reduces their risk by requiring that consumers already have money in their checking accounts to charge against. Additionally, Google and its partner bank earn interest on that checking account’s balance.

This is another way of diversifying Google’s income stream away from Ads; I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the Google credit link to benefits on other Google properties – for example, free or discounted YouTube premium, discounted Google Home devices, etc.