Splitting long pages... SEO effect of more, but shorter, articles?

[graeme_p]

I am considering splitting some longer articles into short ones - say a 700 word article into a 300 word plus a 400 word (or even into three)

There are advantages for users in that it will make the fairly heavy material (not that easy to understand, and often containing formulae etc.) less intimidating. I am emailing some users who have given me feedback in the past to get some opinions on this.

The split will be logical - splitting a sub-headed section of supplementary info into a separate sub page, rather than numbered pages.

Any experience of what the SEO effect (if any will be). One thing to consider is that almost all the internal links from the rest of the site will go to the main page rather than the newly split off sub-pages.

[piatkow]

I recall reading, a long time ago, that the Googlebot had a limit on how much it would read on a page. Is this still the case or am I having a senior moment?

[aristotle]

I think there is a risk that the combined Google traffic to the two new pages would be less than what the single page is getting now.

I also don't think that 700 words is overly long. There are many web pages that have far more content than that. I've seen some that have more than 5000 words.

[Planet13]

Search for a thread started by tedster about two months ago where he addressed splitting longer articles into smaller ones, and the linking structure / naming structure he used for those new pages.

My opinion is that each page needs to be succinct, meaning that it should have a clear, limited point of focus. And the clearer the focus of each page, the better.

Whether that should be done by one article paginated over several different pages, or whether that should be done from a category page / sub-category page with links to distinct individual pages with distinct themes (and appropriate linking between those pages), well, that seems to be the question.

Will the articles allow for user comments? will they have lists of references / further reading links?

If so, maybe it would be better to have them as distinct topics instead of one long article paginated over several pages. Otherwise, user comments / outgoing links would be more focused.

This is just food for thought, and I imagine that experimentation would be needed.

[Planet13]

Otherwise, user comments / outgoing links would be more focused.

Sorry, that wasn't very clear.

What I meant to say is that by having user comments / further reading links that are focused on each page, that will (hopefully) give google and the other search engines a better understanding of the topic.

[tedster]

Here's a link to that earlier thread: Article Pagination: Actions that Improved Google Search Traffic [webmasterworld.com] It's listed in the Hot Topics area [webmasterworld.com], which is always pinned to the top of this forum's index page - and it's still open for further discussion.

I'd agree with earlier comments here - a 700 words doesn't seem too long to me. My main point was that "long form" writing does have a place on the web - I favor literacy ;) - and I wanted to share some of the SEO techniques that make it work for one of the sites I work with.

[graeme_p]

Its not that I think 700 words is long, its that I think 700 worda of comparatively difficult material may be better off split. Its a niche encyclopaedia and I think most visitors get what they want from the first 100 words.

The way I am splitting it is somewhat like what tedster talks about in that thread (each page has its own title and heading, navigation to all pages on each) except that the pages are not numbered. So instead of a single page on "red widgets" with sub headed (<h2>) sections on "uses of red widgets" and "red widget problems", I would have a "red widget page" with separate pages on "uses of red widgets" and "red widget problems"

I do not think url paths matter much these days, but they will be "/red-widgets/", "/red-widgets/red-widget-uses", "/red-widgets/red-widget-problems/".

The site does not allow user comments, although each page ends with a link to my new forum site. There are already related page and category links, and lots of internal and external links within the main content.

@piatkow, thousand+ articles currently on the site, six main index pages with link and two to three link summary for each article, and everything seems to have got indexed, so Google does seem to read at least two hundred short paras into a page.

@tedster, I agree about long form writing in general, and multiple pages will be written as a unit, and some will end up much longer in total.

[Planet13]

I think I should clarify a little bit about the thread that tedster created and which I referenced.

Tedster was talking specifically about "long form journalism." In essence, he was talking about a long "story" that you might find traditionally in a magazine.

I may have muddied the waters up a bit be referencing that, since it seems to NOT be what you are doing with your content:

Its a niche encyclopaedia and I think most visitors get what they want from the first 100 words.

If your content is encyclopedic in nature, and NOT serial (the way a story would be), then I don't see what the value would be to paginate the content. Encyclopedic material seems to me (as a visitor) to best be served with random access, and appropriate internal linking.

Maybe I am wrong and someone will enlighten me?

[graeme_p]

Its not pagination, although its similar enough to pagination that I think tedster's experience is relevant (so thanks for that, its great thread).

Its partly about moving supplementary material on to separate pages to keep the main article focused. Its most important for material that would not look right on the main page.

I also hope to get:

1) A lower bounce rate
2) more page impressions (more ads served - but the main page content loads before the ads to minimise annoyance)
3) A separate page to match searches for, continuing the example above, "red widget problems" (its title and h1 heading would be "red widget problems" rather than just "red widgets"). I especially want to push "how to" and similar pages up.