Put each article on one page and let galleries scroll. Splitting content across many pages inflates page views, loses readers on phones and leaves search engines with thin pages, while the extra views are worth less than they appear.

One item per click

A familiar format on content sites: an article on the ten best of something, with one item per page and a next button at the bottom of each.

Galleries do the same with photographs, one per click, each on its own page with its own ads around it.

The logic is easy to follow. Ten pages read means ten page views, and page views are what many advertising arrangements count.

The trouble is what happens to the reader, and to what those ten views are actually worth.

What the reader goes through

The fourth loses the most readers. Someone who came for the top entry, or their own neighbourhood's pick, has to click through everything before it, and on a phone many will not.

What search engines see

Each page in the series is a separate address with a paragraph of text and a photograph. To a search engine that is a set of thin pages, each saying very little.

Google's advice for split articles has long been to mark the series with pagination tags or to offer a view-all page and point the parts to it. Both are workarounds for a problem a single page does not have.

The ranking swings in March this year hit many thin, ad-heavy content sites, a reminder of how pages like these can be judged.

Why the extra views are worth less

A page view in the middle of a slideshow is a view of a page the reader is trying to get past. Ads on it are seen briefly, if at all.

Advertisers, and the systems that buy space for them, increasingly judge whether an ad was seen and whether the visit was worth anything. Pages built for clicks tend to do badly on both counts.

A format that frustrates readers also pushes some of them toward ad blockers, which costs every page on the site, not just the slideshow.

Ten glances at thin pages can be worth less than one page read to the end.

Articles on one page

Put the whole article on one page, with a short list at the top that jumps to each item, so the reader who wants the top pick can go straight there.

Place ads between sections, so they appear as the reader scrolls through content rather than standing between the reader and the next click.

Long articles are fine. A reader who chose the article will scroll; a reader made to click will often stop.

Galleries that scroll

A gallery works the same way: every photograph on one page, one below another, each with its caption.

Load images as the reader approaches them, so the first screen appears quickly and nobody downloads twenty photographs they never reach.

And size each image for the screen it is shown on. A gallery is where unresized photographs do the most damage.

A worked example

A local food and restaurant review site run by two writers published a list of the twelve best bowls of ramen in the city, one restaurant per page.

Each page carried a photograph, two paragraphs, a block of ads and a next button that, on a phone, sat below the ads.

The analytics showed the pattern. Pages per visit looked healthy, but most readers left after the second or third page, and very few reached the top three.

Readers arriving from search usually landed on one of the inner pages, without context, unsure which list they were in or where it started.

The list was rebuilt as one page, with the twelve restaurants linked at the top, the address and hours under each entry, and ads between entries.

Page views fell, as expected. The writers now judge each list by how far down readers scroll and how many come back for the next one.

What to measure instead of page views

Scroll depth: how far down the page readers get, recorded as events through Google Tag Manager. It shows whether people read the article, which page views cannot.

Returning readers, newsletter sign-ups and visits that move on to a second article by choice, which together say whether the site is worth coming back to.

Time on page is weaker than it looks, since Analytics records no time for the last page of a visit unless something on it is tracked.

And earnings per visit rather than per page, which treats an engaged reader and a click-through reader honestly.

Splitting where it makes sense

Some content does belong on several pages. A guide with genuinely separate parts, each long enough to stand alone and each something a person might search for, can be several pages.

The test is whether each page would be worth reading if it were the only one a visitor saw.

That is a different decision from cutting one article into equal pieces to multiply the clicks.

The counter-case

Very long reference pieces and step-by-step series can be clearer as chapters, and readers on slow connections can be better served by several moderate pages than one enormous one.

A site whose income is counted in page views may need to change how it is measured before it changes its layout, which takes a conversation with whoever sells its ads.

But for lists and galleries the default should be one page. Let the reader scroll, and count what they actually read.

This month

  1. Find every split article and gallery on the site.
  2. Check where readers stop in each series.
  3. Rebuild the most visited as single pages.
  4. Add a jump list at the top of each.
  5. Redirect the old part pages to the new one.
  6. Load gallery images as readers scroll.
  7. Start recording scroll depth in Tag Manager.

Step five keeps what the old pages earned. Each part has its own links and search history, and redirecting each one to the single page keeps them working.

Ad formats that make phone readers give up in a different way are covered in sticky ads on phones and the Better Ads list.

Frequently asked questions

Why do sites split articles into pages?

Each page counts as a page view, and many advertising arrangements count page views. The cost falls on readers, search visibility and the value of each view.

What happens to readers on phones?

Every click loads a full page of ads and scripts, the next button sits below them, and the reader starts at the top again. Many stop after a few pages.

How do search engines treat split articles?

Each part is a separate thin page. Pagination tags and view-all pages are workarounds, while a single page avoids the problem entirely.

Are the extra page views worth anything?

Less than they look. Ads on pages readers are trying to get past are seen briefly, and buyers increasingly judge whether ads were actually seen.

What should I measure instead?

Scroll depth through Google Tag Manager, returning readers, sign-ups, visits that go on to another article, and earnings per visit rather than per page.

Should anything stay split across pages?

Genuinely separate chapters that would each be worth reading alone. Cutting one article into equal pieces to multiply clicks is a different thing.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Lists still split one item per page?

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