Does Google prefer one long page or three shorter pages? And why?

[Zanswer]

I've been under the impression that if you have a long page (3+ pages if printed), it is better to split it into a few shorter pages, which is more SEO friendly. However, I don’t know why. Isn’t a long webpage covering one topic with many keywords supposed to rank better than each of the three pages divided from it, assuming all others remain the same? Can there be too many keywords and thus being penalized by Google?

From a user standpoint, a long page is also easier to navigate than multiple pages. The drawback with long pages is of course you cannot place as many ads, and visitors may get intimidated by the amount of information at first glance.

So am I missing something? Which option is better?

Thanks.

[crockett5]

The Bots can only index so much info from my understanding. So IMO the more pages the better, because it adds site depth.

The issue is, you don't want all three pages to target the same keywords, otherwise it will be seen as duplicate content and for the most part ignored.

My opinion, is to split the pages up, but also target different keywords on each page if you can.

[WorldImpulse]

Forget google and think what will be better for your visitors?

Will they like to have one long page or 3 short pages ?

Let yours and google's aim be one : Work for betterment of the Internet

Your rankings will follow along

[Teunel]

I always use more pages if I have lots of content. It looks nicer to my opinion, and you'll get more Pageviews.

I don't know what's the best for SEO. I think they both have their pros and cons.

[usasportstraining]

Originally Posted by WorldImpulse

Forget google and think what will be better for your visitors?

Will they like to have one long page or 3 short pages ?

Let yours and google's aim be one : Work for betterment of the Internet

Your rankings will follow along

Yeah, I agree with this.

[Zanswer]

How do you know whether your visitors like long pages or short pages? Is there a poll or usability study on this subject? You are exactly right by saying "think what is better for your visitors," what is better then?

People keep saying forget about Google. How can it EVER happen? I agree you shouldn't do stuff solely for the purpose of SEO, but is anyone on this board actually designing their site solely for their visitors without even thinking about Google?

Originally Posted by WorldImpulse

Forget google and think what will be better for your visitors?

Will they like to have one long page or 3 short pages ?

Let yours and google's aim be one : Work for betterment of the Internet

Your rankings will follow along

[WorldImpulse]

Originally Posted by Zanswer

How do you know whether your visitors like long pages or short pages? Is there a poll or usability study on this subject? You are exactly right by saying "think what is better for your visitors," what is better then?

People keep saying forget about Google. How can it EVER happen? I agree you shouldn't do stuff solely for the purpose of SEO, but is anyone on this board actually designing their site solely for their visitors without even thinking about Google?

See i am not asking you to not to look at googles perspective at all, but at points where you feel confused go in for what your visitors will like.

The reason behind this is that google's algo is not fixed, it changes daily, and the change is in order to help the visitors.

So when you and google work for the same cause we will have 2 winners

[LadyHoldem]

Originally Posted by Zanswer

How do you know whether your visitors like long pages or short pages? Is there a poll or usability study on this subject? You are exactly right by saying "think what is better for your visitors," what is better then?

People keep saying forget about Google. How can it EVER happen? I agree you shouldn't do stuff solely for the purpose of SEO, but is anyone on this board actually designing their site solely for their visitors without even thinking about Google?

There actually have been polls.

Votes were that we avoid long daunting pages, not wanting to start them at all. Pages broken up by subheadings don't tend to be skipped as much, as they're skimmable. More than 1000 words was considered to be to long.

I don't know where to find these types of polls now, I used to watch lots of them.. also.. a users eye most commonly lands on the top left area of the screen as it loads :P

LadyH

[Zanswer]

Agreed. If there is a way to satisfy my visitors and in the mean time achieve higher ranging, I'll go for it in a heart beat

Originally Posted by WorldImpulse

So when you and google work for the same cause we will have 2 winners

Thanks. I didn't think of that.

Originally Posted by crockett5

The Bots can only index so much info from my understanding. So IMO the more pages the better, because it adds site depth.

Thanks for the pointer. I'll update this thread if I find those polls.

Originally Posted by LadyHoldem

Votes were that we avoid long daunting pages, not wanting to start them at all. Pages broken up by subheadings don't tend to be skipped as much, as they're skimmable. More than 1000 words was considered to be to long.

[timallard]

I normally paginate long pages. I Dont like scrolling to much.

[mji2010]

I would also go for more pages... but I also like to give the option to make it all appear on one page

[four27pm]

just foot your place on visitor thinking are you gonna like your site content as visitor...

for bots, it is good if you put important keywords on top of contents or paragraphs, bots are lazy so give them the best content of your site that they can easily crawled.

[IEmailer.com]

Try to think as a visitor visiting your own website if you like it then they will, and btw no body like to scroll pages as well.

[LadyHoldem]

An interesting read .. not to long

http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=120458

The comments from earlier that you quoted were based on studies done using eyetrack07 that should give you a keyword to use when searching for polls.

[trichnosis]

in my opinion, google will not care it.

google will only look its keyword density and backlinks to that page.

page size is not a criteria for google but it's criteria for your visitors

[flippers.be]

Most sites split up long pages because more pages = more pageviews = more ads shown..

If you should split up or not depends on the content and keywords used.
If the whole document is about the same topic and uses the same vocabulary and keywords, it makes no difference.

If some paragraphs have a different content and use other keywords, then it may be better to split the page so you get ads for these keywords.

You must experiment with this. It will depend on the content and keywords if google understands what something is about and if it can map it to relevant ads. If you get non-relevant ads then either split up different topics, or join them and see if the ads become relevant.

[infoservices]

Nothing matter one big page or three small three page only keywords and good BL is important...

[davewashere]

Split it up if it needs to be split, but keep it together if splitting will just annoy your visitors. I hate it when sites do a "Top 25 ___ of All Time" and they split each item on the list into its own page. I really don't want to keep clicking and waiting for a page to load before viewing the next item.

[Zanswer]

This is also what I think is the number one reason for many sites that split long pages.

I have been a fan of longer pages - one topic per page - either as a visitor or webmaster, but I'll be looking more carefully at my contents now.

Originally Posted by flippers.be

Most sites split up long pages because more pages = more pageviews = more ads shown..

If you should split up or not depends on the content and keywords used.

[LadyHoldem]

Some decent points made in this thread..

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=289632