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If I do a search on Google, by my understanding, it will affect the ordering of results both for me, and the rest of the world, very slightly, depending on the results I click on. This is to adjust to the 'feedback' - me scrolling down to the third result vs. clicking on the first one.

However, if this single click is enough to tip the balance, or I keep a search result page open during a major algorithm change, how does Google know what results to show when I click to change the page? E.g if the algorithm shift means that a result previously on the bottom of the first page has now moved to the top of the second page, if I click to move onto the second page, will Google just reload the results and show the result again, even though I've just seen it?

In general, what is the best practice for this? Is this even something that needs to be accounted for?

Geza Kerecsenyi
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    The usual approach would be [cursor-based pagination](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18314687/how-to-implement-cursors-for-pagination-in-an-api). But I'm not sure if Google cares that much about such edge cases. – Marvin Nov 10 '19 at 20:42
  • @Marvin that seems to work for the most part in terms of deleted items, but not for rearrangement. Is there maybe some cookie that is saved to mark the timestamp or algorithm version? – Geza Kerecsenyi Nov 10 '19 at 20:53
  • I don't know how Google implements their search results page. But I strongly believe that they favor performance over correctness. – Marvin Nov 10 '19 at 21:09
  • @Marvin thanks for your help. Speaking in more general terms, is there some algorithm out there (not necessarily that Google use it) for this sort of thing? – Geza Kerecsenyi Nov 10 '19 at 21:16

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