Design question.

[michaelday]

I'm planning to build a site rich with free content, however I'm not sure would it be better if I design it all on one page such as www.domain.com/page.html#topic1, #topic2, #topic3... or to go with www.domain.com/topic1, www.domain.com/topic2,
...
My reasoning for first approach is that main page will have all the incoming links to it and therefore higher page rank and also it is easier to design.
Any input is appreciated.

[hasbeen]

Michael,
Here's a good place to start for answers...would seem your first instinct was your best!

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

Regards.

[SmallTime]

I have to disagree, and go with option two - separate pages. I think page size is very important. A 6k page of html will rank much better than a 60k page, other factors equal.

[hasbeen]

After re-reading my post, let me clarify. I apparently didn't type what I was thinking (not the first time that's happened)!

I interpreted Michael's "domain.com/page1.html#topic1" as meaning a page with links to various subpages. Exactly what, at least I THINK, he meant by his second example. Sorry for the confusion - off day.

[michaelday]

The site that can be used as an example for option one is Eric Raymond's "How to become a hacker" page. You can find it in google, and as you can see it has very high page rank, it is very long and I would bet that it ranks well for many search phrases. On top of that when a user comes to such site, he/she is overwhelmed with info and is very likely to bookmark it as opposed to visiting a page that has well written title and maybe 400 words of content.

[SmallTime]

It ranks well because of the pagerank - lots of good links pointing to it. A grandfather page, I would guess. A better test would be two relatively new pages with equal pagerank, links, and directory listing. One page gets you one title, etc to optimize for - several pages allows you to target more keyword variations.