Optimum number of posts per page for forum content

[Asia_Expat]

Presently I have it set at 20 per page, but I'm thinking about changing this. I'm torn which way to go. Increasing would concentrate good content (the forum offers loads of good 'on topic' discussion) into the first page and reduces pagination. OTOH, reducing the number of posts gets more pages indexed.

Any thoughts and experiences to offer?

[robzilla]

What's the perceived benefit of getting more pages with fewer content indexed? In my experience, it's been easier to get fewer pages with more content to rank well. Since all posts are on and within the same topic, why spread it thin?

[tangor]

I run 25 "standard" and provide options to the user to change that number (just like you can here at Webmasterworld). I also like pages that load fairly quickly, which can be up to 40-50 posts per page if there aren't too many images or avatars in the mix.

[Asia_Expat]

Indeed, I'm swinging towards increasing the number of posts per page and will probably go to 30 or even 40. Avatars/signatures etc etc are only visible to logged in members.

[yandr]

I think this is a great question.

I am using only 20 posts per page, but I am more interested in what the user thinks is better, than what a search engine might think.

[Asia_Expat]

I changed to 30 per page about a week ago, and I've seen a ~30 percent drop in Google traffic. I'm guessing it's related to this, the only other thing is a server move around 5 weeks ago (I don't think it's that) or Infolinks Tag Cloud added around the same time (I don't this this is the problem either)...

Assuming it's the change in the number of posts that's caused the drop... how long do you think it will take to sort itself out?

[Asia_Expat]

Well my traffic came back up... but I think it will take a lot longer to see the 'correction' so to speak, as I've discovered a real clanger of a bug in my forum software... the old pagination urls still resolve their content AND add a rel canonical... shocking!...

I've dealt with it by crafting some more pattern match entries in my robots.txt

[mikeavery11]

I think 20 post is enough but 30 is not bad. We should do according to Google panda.