Dividing content into multiple pages

Is it worth it? Does it produce more earnings?

[DelliTranswait]

I have a content-rich website that providing steadily increasing Google Adsense earnings. The website consists of hundreds of pages, each on one subject (say, "oranges", "apples", "potatoes", etc.). Each page has a column of Adsense skyscraper ads on the left. On almost every case, the page content is far longer than the Google ads.

I am considering breaking each page into two pages (say, "oranges1" and "oranges2", "apples1" and "apples2", etc.). Doing this would show more ads per each subject.

Has anyone done anything like this? Are earnings likely to increase? Or might I show more ads to get the same earnings?

[21_blue]

Breaking it up into smaller pages has a wide range of benefits, from easier readibility for the visitor to improved SERPS performance to more ad placement opportunities to better targeted ads from the Google robot. Imho it is much better to break it up.

[21_blue]

PS: keep your original page names as the first or index page in the topic, with a summary/overview. Make sure it doesn't lose its attraction to the search engine.

[europeforvisitors]

What 21_blue said.

There used to be a rule of thumb that said a page shouldn't be more than 1.5 screens long. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but I do think that excessive scrolling can be annoying to users.

A few years ago, WIRED reported on an academic study where users were asked to choose between an article on a long scrolling page and an even longer version of the article that had been broken into multiple pages. Most users preferred the multi-page article, which they perceived as being shorter than the single-page article even though it actually contained more text.

[jchampliaud]

Are earnings likely to increase?

That’s hard to say. It’s all about making sure the ads are targeted to the content. That’s key and what you should be looking for, IMHO.

[HughMungus]

I *would* divide a long article and I'd move the ads to the bottom of the page so that if people are tired of/done with the article after a certain page, the next link in their face is an Adsense ad.