One of my current pet hates: the phrase “infinte scroll”.
Never heard of it? Infinite scroll is used to describe websites where you scroll down a web page and content continues to appear as you scroll, um, down. As you scroll more content appears, as you scroll more content appears, as you scroll more content appears. And so it goes on until you reach the end of the content.
Because that scrolling will come to an end eventually. Because no website is infinite. Therefore it is impossible for a website’s scrolling to be infinite.
In theory assuming a search engine will keep existing and continue to ‘absorb’ content there could be an infinite amount of content available out there (based on potential) - but a number of factors raise uncertainty over the potential for the absorbtion of the infinite limit that existence, notably uncertainty over the continued existence of engines/orgs Google, that system, humanity and so on.
(Google itself doesn’t employ infinite scrolling for its text pages. Google’s image search pages employ a limited “inifite scroll” technique but cuts off after a certain amount of scrolling. So while their image search pages scroll down a long way, they aren’t infinite and they aren’t infinite scrolling.)
Unless your website randomly generates new content on the fly, a modern day version of the old GOTO loop in BASIC if you will, you’re not employing infinite scrolling. I have yet to see that website. I would love to see that website, especially to see how the environment (browser, device) handles that.
And for anyone who says It is called infinite scrolling because it has the potential to keep displaying a continual stream of content as if this was some future-proof concept ready for when humanity is ready to fully utilise it: Really?
So, until you actually make something that scrolls infinitely - so contextually you are using it correctly - please stop with the use of “infnite scrolling”.
Thanks.