Google updates Chrome to get rid of those pesky website page jumps

So imagine you are surfing the web and you come across one of your favorite websites. You see a link to an article on that site and tap on it, then start to scroll down that page to read the feature. Suddenly, that page just jumps back up to the top of the article, all by itself.

What happened? It’s more than possible that the site inserted some kind of banner ad or image on top of that page in question, which can cause the page to jump back up to the top of your browser. It’s a growing trend on some sites that, unfortunately, is also really irritating when all you want to do is read an article without any interruptions. Thankfully, Google has updated its Chrome web browser with a feature designed to fight this annoying trend.

Google calls this feature “scroll anchoring” and, as you can see in the video above, it can make a huge difference if a site decides to insert an image or ad on top of a page. Google claims that scroll anchoring in the recent Chrome 56 update has resulted in an average of almost three “jumps” being removed per pageview. Google has also released more information, along with the specs, on its scroll anchoring efforts on GitHub, in the hopes that designers can make their own moves to prevent page jumping on their sites.

Have you encountered an increase in page jumping, and if so, are you happy Google is trying to cut this trend down to size? Let us know in the comments!