Pagination is not something we are usually concerned of. You put those links to first, last and next/previous three or so pages somewhere below the search results and that's it. Or you do the infinite scroll, because it's cool and trendy, plus you saw that "no-offset" talk from Markus Winand and infinite scroll is kind to your database engine. We, at Luigi's Box, do care about everything related to search and thus we looked also on pagination of search results. We wanted to find out, whether there is a difference in performance (from the conversion rate perspective) between various designs of pagination. In the talk, we will share our key findings so the next time when you will work on your search results page, you'll know what to do and what to avoid.

1. How should you paginate
search results on your
website?
Ondrej Kaššák, Michal Barla, Luigi’s Box
www.luigisbox.com

2. Luigi’s Box is a synonym
for good site search
● search analytics
● autocomplete
● search engine

3. Visitors using search make
70% more conversions

4. Because they know what
they want

5. 30% of e-shop visitors use
site search

6. Luigi’s Box Dashboard
demo.luigisbox.com

7. Today’s topic:
How should you paginate
search results on your
website?

8. There are 3 pagination types.
Which one is better?
● traditional pagination
● infinite scrolling
● load more

9. + freedom of choosing which results page
to visit next
+ fixed ‘window’ of results as a reference frame
- inefficient from the DB perspective
- complicated to use on phones
Traditional pagination

10. + constant results loading time
+ no need to click - good for phones
- only next/prev page movements
- no frame of reference
Infinite scrolling

11. + constant results loading time
+ fixed “window” of results as a
reference frame
- only next/prev page movements
Load more

12. ‘Infinite scrolling’ has its
hidden UX problems
● scrolling offers smooth and seamless experience
● users browse vastly more products
● but they pay less attention and do not interact
source: Etsy study,
https://www.slideshare.net/danmckinley/design-for-continuous-experimentation/35-Innite_Scroll_Results_Visitors_seeing
source: Baymard Institute, https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/pagination-infinite-scrolling-load-more-buttons/

13. ‘Infinite scrolling’ leads to
less interest and thus lower
conversion rates
● in comparison to ‘traditional’ and
‘load more’ pagination
source: Etsy study,
https://www.slideshare.net/danmckinley/design-for-continuous-experimentation/35-Innite_Scroll_Results_Visitors_seeing
source: Baymard Institute, https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/pagination-infinite-scrolling-load-more-buttons/

14. Today’s topic update:
Should you use
‘traditional’ or ‘load more’
pagination?

15. With ‘load more’,
the only question is
‘Do I want to see more results?’
● it’s simpler than ‘traditional’ pagination
● users view more products with less cognitive load
● from top 50 US e-commerce sites, only 8% use it
source: Baymard Institute: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/pagination-infinite-scrolling-load-more-buttons/

16. To find the answer, we
looked into the data…
● approx 200 clients
● 2 months of activity
● at least 1K searches each
● avg 17.6K searches per client

17. At first, we defined search
● set of actions where user browses
search results
● part of a session, with the same query
and filters
● we consider any change as a new search

18. Then, we segmented searches
● ‘first page only’
● next/prev ‘steps only’
● containing ‘jump’

19. ‘First page only’ searches:
88.7%
● ‘traditional’ pagination
clients only

20. ‘Steps’ cover 91.5% of all
pagination actions

21. Users use pagination ‘jumps’
only very rarely
● in addition, 33.2 % of these are
‘back-to-the-first-page jumps’

22. But why take away
a functionality,
even if used rarely?

23. But why take away
a functionality,
even if used rarely?

24. Why is my pagination
even used?

25. With a good search, users do
not need pagination at all
● when was the last time you jumped to 7th
result page on Google?
● ‘load more’ makes more sense

26. Pagination vs. Conversions
● so again, let’s look into the data…
● at first, we split clients into groups:
○ clients with custom search
○ clients with Luigi’s Box search

27. Pagination vs. Conversions
per segments
Clients with custom search Clients with Luigi’s Box search

28. High quality search helps to convert
even without any pagination
Clients with custom search Clients with Luigi’s Box search
87.9%
of sessions
use
no pagination
and comprise
80.9%
of conversions
93.0%
of sessions
use
no pagination
and comprise
94.1%
of conversions

29. Luigi’s Box search brings
● 5.8 % increase in first page only searches
● 16.3 % increase in conversions for them

30. Search results ordering
really matters
● include user behavior, popularity
● learn from historical data
● use ‘learning to rank’, weighting, ...

31. If a user finds relevant items
at the first result page and
they are logically sorted, the
user does not need to use
pagination at all

32. Lessons learned
● do not use ‘infinite scrolling’
● ‘load more’ is better than ‘traditional’
pagination
● order your search results intelligently

33. Want to know more?
see full blogpost at:
www.luigisbox.com/blog/pagination/

34. We are hiring
https://www.luigisbox.com/careers/
● work with us on the best e-commerce
search platform
● interesting scale and challenging problems
● Junior/Senior Backend Engineer
● ML Engineer