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Opinions on Single vs. Multi-Page Articles?

by Robert Bleach
7 replies
I have a site that's mainly Adsense driven in a non-IM niche and almost all of my posts are over 1500 words (most are over 2000). Right now I have them all as single page, mainly because I hate reading multi-page posts myself.

My concerns about the single-page approach are two-fold. One, I imagine that having single page posts hurts my bounce rate, which is 81%. I have a feeling that this is because people get all the info they need from the one page and then leave, giving Google the wrong impression about the usefulness of my site. Two, having single page posts limits adsense page views (double the pages, double the page views).

So my questions are: would it help to split my posts into 2 or more pages? Has anyone done this and seen an increase in not only Adsense page views, but also in clicks? Also, would changing older (and well-ranked) posts from single to multi-page hurt their rankings? Finally, do you think that most readers are as annoyed by multi-page posts as I am? My site is an information site, so I would think people would put up with it (as opposed to just a time-waster site with funny articles that people would be more likely to abandon at page 1).
#articles #multipage #opinions #single
  • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
    I'll tell you this from a user-perspective: I love reading Google News when I have spare time, and I've learned which newspapers and magazines put their content on 1 page and which ones use multiple pages. I rarely click on the ones that are on multiple pages and, when I do, I immediately hit the 'print friendly' button so I can see it all on one page AND eliminate the advertising at the same time.

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    • Profile picture of the author Robert Bleach
      Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

      I love reading Google News when I have spare time, and I've learned which newspapers and magazines put their content on 1 page and which ones use multiple pages.
      True, and I'm the same way. However, I consider news sites to be "take-it-or-leave-it" type information, more for curiosity's sake than to answer a real life question.

      People who come to my site probably need the info I provide. I can't imagine getting people who would browse for the hell of it, given my niche. It's not a particularly fun or interesting area for people who don't have a specific need for info.

      The reason I'm think of risking annoying my readers is because I made a bad decision when I first started the site regarding ad size and placement because "I didn't want to annoy my readers". Once I changed the ads to be larger and more intrusive (within reason), I started making 10x the money. I really kicked myself for having been a stupid nice guy earlier, and I'm wondering whether I'm doing it again.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tangycontent
    Originally Posted by Robert Bleach View Post

    I have a site that's mainly Adsense driven in a non-IM niche and almost all of my posts are over 1500 words (most are over 2000). Right now I have them all as single page, mainly because I hate reading multi-page posts myself.

    My concerns about the single-page approach are two-fold. One, I imagine that having single page posts hurts my bounce rate, which is 81%. I have a feeling that this is because people get all the info they need from the one page and then leave, giving Google the wrong impression about the usefulness of my site. Two, having single page posts limits adsense page views (double the pages, double the page views).

    So my questions are: would it help to split my posts into 2 or more pages? Has anyone done this and seen an increase in not only Adsense page views, but also in clicks? Also, would changing older (and well-ranked) posts from single to multi-page hurt their rankings? Finally, do you think that most readers are as annoyed by multi-page posts as I am? My site is an information site, so I would think people would put up with it (as opposed to just a time-waster site with funny articles that people would be more likely to abandon at page 1).
    Keep your users in mind, not the search engines. Single page is the way to go.

    There's a paper located here (http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/p...quisti-JIM.pdf) about interruption advertising and how it works, but to summarize:

    The implications of these results are significant for marketing practices. Consumers' attention is a scarce resource--one that marketers fight for fiercely to secure for their products. In this fight, the temptation is strong to exploit new technologies to create ever more unavoidable advertising messages.

    This approach though comes with a risk. The marketing literature has already highlighted cases in which advertising messages deemed as intrusive have caused consumers to react negatively to the advertising brand. However, to our knowledge, the impact of intrusive advertising on consumers' willingness to pay for products associated with the advertising brand has not been precisely estimated before. Our results suggest that there are conditions under which aggressive advertising can simultaneously raise awareness for a company's brand while decreasing consumers' WTP -- thus potentially negatively affecting the brand's bottom line.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
    As a reader I avoid the multi page sites too.

    As a site owner, 81% isn't a bad bounce rate, at least not compared to mine. For adsense, you are allowed 3 display units, 3 link units, and a search box on each page. Maybe more, but that was enough to put in all the ads I ever wanted to.

    If you get the ads that are 160 px tall, they will cover a lot of vertical space on a page.
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    • Profile picture of the author Robert Bleach
      Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski View Post

      For adsense, you are allowed 3 display units, 3 link units, and a search box on each page. Maybe more, but that was enough to put in all the ads I ever wanted to.
      I'm very happy with my ad placement and size right now, but I wondered if causing readers to go to a new page, exposing them to different ads, might be a way to increase clicks.
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      • Profile picture of the author ElaineBrown
        Banned
        As a reader I don't mind reading multiple page articles, as long as thje contents are well structured and interesting.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrew Davis
    I happened to come across this Forum Topic while searching google for "I hate multi-page articles", lol.

    I wanted to see what others think about this.

    I had now opened an article, and there it was, another one of these Multi-page Slideshow articles.
    There were 40+ pages/slides in this one...

    I immediately closed the page and didn't bother to read the article.
    I really dislike that type of layout, and would like to discourage others from using it.

    I can probably bare with 2 pages, as the OP was suggesting. That would help keep your bounce rate down, and "possibly" increase ad clicks.

    But anything over 3 pages is ridiculous to me.

    One may think they are getting more views by using this "trick", but in effect, they are losing a lot of visitors who won't put up with the inconvenience; thus, they end up possibly losing more earnings than they would have with a single-page article.
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