Posted 6 months ago #
How do search engines view a single long post vs. the same content divided into pages using the WordPress nextpage code? Is one or the other better for SEO?
Is there an easy way to provide a multi-page version for online reading, and a single-page version for printing and search engines?
I host my website and use the Weaver theme.
There are pros and cons from a SEO perspective of breaking up an article into multiple pages.
A positive to breaking up your article into multiple pages is that it allows you to target different keywords per page and target your optimization for those keywords better. Chances are you will also have a higher pages per visit (PPV) data point for your site since most users will click through to secondary pages.
Negatives are that there is less content per page and a single page has to target all of the keywords for that article which can decrease the chances of the article ranking well for many different keywords.
A positive to a single page post is that typically people will link to the first page of an article so all of the link juice will end up going to the first page, but if the article is multiple pages and people are only linking to the first page then the secondary pages of the article will not receive as much link juice since it will be diluted as it filters down.
Personally, I have not had much success with secondary pages of an article ranking well, so I usually just focus on creating single page articles, but you could have more success.
I would not spend too much time worrying about it, but would rather spend your time focusing on creating quality content for your posts.
Posted 6 months ago #
Thanks for your in-depth analysis, revium. I'm not sure why it's not showing up in this thread, but I can't see it here.
Another advantage to 1-page posts is that they are MUCH more searchable. And more printable! I'm not going to even consider switching to multi-page for long posts unless I can provide a single-page version for searching and printing.
My favorite part of your post:
I would not spend too much time worrying about it, but would rather spend your time focusing on creating quality content for your posts.
I should mention that the reason for my questions is a post over 11,000 words long. I like to provide in-depth content. ;)
He was caught in spam. It happens.
1-page posts are more searchable, but less readable. There are reasons we break up paragraphs and chapters. Don't forget that too.
Posted 6 months ago #
Gotcha -- thanks, Ipstenu.
My ideal would be to have a multipage version for readers, and a single-page version for searches, printing, and search engines. Is there an easy way to do this? Plugin?
Not (easily) without generating duplicate content, alas...
Posted 6 months ago #
Well, crud. I see some commercial sites do this. In fact I look at their 1-page print versions so I don't have to see their #@&% animated ads.
Ahhh you mean news articles?
I wonder... if you use <!--nextpage--> to break them up, I wonder if it loads everything on the one page and, if so, you can use a plugin to 'join' all pages.
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