WordPress and other blogs, as well as many websites, can use a feature known as multiple page posts, slicing up a long post into more than one “page”. While this may seem like a smart idea, it sucks.
How many times have you been frustrated arriving on a web page looking for information only to not find the information on the page? You know it’s there. The title tells you so. You read through it, come to the end and see “continued on page 2, 3, 4″. It makes you want to scream. You page through the information and find it finally on page 4, but it took you a lot of time to get there.
Many times, I’ve come to the “continues on next page” link and was determined to keep reading. I click the next page link and it features two sentences. Why bother forcing me to waste bandwidth to load a new page for only two sentences? Ridiculous time waster.
In time, you learn to use the Print function, if the page hosts it, which puts the entire article on one page, often without ads. Makes it much easier to read, doesn’t it? On news sites and other sites which divide their pages in articles, I go right for the print link.
Why do people split blog posts into multiple pages?
Here is why I believe people split blog posts into multiple pages:
- They think of their blog posts like print media. Like a magazine.
- They want more page views, thus increasing their advertising exposure.
- They believe the myth that readers won’t read to the end of a long article.
- They believe it spreads keyword value across multiple pages.
Here is what I think splitting blog posts really does:
- Slows down the reading process, losing readers along the way. (How many pages do you honestly click through to get to the end?)
- Increases ad coverage and revenue, at the expense of the reader.
- Loses ad coverage and revenue as many learn to read the post via the print link, minus all the ads.
- Loses credibility as people don’t get to the end of the article or click away.
- Interferes with the reading process. Anything that gets between your reader and your content is trouble.
If you believe in the myth that readers won’t read to the end of a long blog post, then what makes you think they will tolerate multiple page clicks to get to that same end?
Most bloggers using multiple page posts rarely get the second page read or found, thus losing the relevance of their important content, lost on buried web pages. Multiple page posts might be found in a search, but their content is not found through categories, tags, on the front page, or other multiple post page views.
Do multiple page posts make it as a single post through the blog’s feed? Good question. Do you know? For those who are frustrated with blogs which do not offer full content feeds or want to ensure their readers get full content in their feeds, do you see paged posts completely in the feed reader? Hmm?
If you think your blog post is too long, it is always better to split long posts into multiple posts, not pages, which creates an article series. This is a great way to keep readers coming back to your blog and spreads the information across wisely rather than buried in an additional page.
Multiple page posts often don’t feature a table of contents, like an article series would, which makes it hard for the reader to know where they are in the sequence as well as where the information they are seeking lies. Is it on page 2 or page 4?
Many using multiple page posts lose their readers because of hard to see and find page links. They are found at the bottom of the post, often buried between the post meta data information and content. The fonts are small and it’s hard to see the links on single numbers.
Paged post links also add clutter to the page, along with the social bookmarking icons, post meta data section, advertising, and all the other clutter on a page. Why add more clutter for something that doesn’t function well in the first place?
I have been frustrated for years about the dividing up of post content and articles across multiple pages. Aren’t you tired of it? It’s old thinking in a new world.
Blogs are about communicating and interaction. They are about creating and maintaining relationships with your audience. If you are doing anything that interferes with their ability to read your blog posts and access your blog, you are just putting barriers up between your content and your readers.
I have yet to come up with a single good, positive reason to break up a blog post. Have you?
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.
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24 Comments
Here’s one possibility, which is why I’ve been considering splitting posts: To get more headlines and posts on the front page so that people who aren’t regular blog readers will get a quick look at recent content. Yes, those recent posts’ headlines are in the sidebars, but I’m not sure how much people read those. I think a lot of readers are not blog “regulars,” so they don’t know what to look for.
Just a thought. I haven’t done it yet, but thanks for giving me a view of the other side.
The only good reason I can think of to split up a blog post is if it is going to be VERY photo-intense and you are being considerate of your dial-up users; you will loose them if they have to wait forever to load your page.
For the most part, I agree, but Kim also has a good point. The only posts I’ve written and split up into multiple pages was a few reviews of products. They were fairly photo intensive and the pages act as a way to delineate sections within the review. Plus, jamming it all on one page is just too much. I think the reader needs a breather sometimes and to collect their thoughts through something of that informative nature and length. Plus splitting up a review into multiple posts makes no sense, so multiple pages seemed the only logical solution.
I believe there should be a option to see a single page version of a multi-post-blog post, if the user wants. Would be a bit tricky to implement perhaps but it would be nice if the user could choose the way he wishes to read the post.
Good points overall, though I do think comments at least should be paginated. Waiting 30 seconds for a page to load because 657 comments were made is just silly.
In a year’s time, I’ve used the “more” function once and it was for the express purpose of breaking up one particular post that was of very little value to the reader (a joke actually, but it was incredibly long). That’s not what I normally do and it threw a few readers for a loop. I will never do it again.
I tried using it but it sucks as you have stated. I broke them up into natural individual pages.
Article series is a good option and have started to use it, but I have yet to sort out the CSS to embed it so the text flows around it. Do you have any hints Lorelle on the CSS you use?
Kim and Charlie: Readers don’t need “a breather”. If they do, then they will leave your blog, not just stop reading. If you flood anyone with too much information, they lose interest. The same applies to too many images.
Honestly, a blog post is not a thesis. It should realistically make no more than 3, maybe four points and then be done. If you are using too many images and too many points, break it up naturally so that your points are made and not lost in a flood of information.
As for respect for bandwidth, again, respect everyone’s bandwidth, not just those on dial-up. Too many images, too many graphics, too much Flash and other animations and videos are overwhelming for anyone. Simple, simple, simplify, simple.
RT Cunningham: The “read more” function only truncates a blog post on the front page of your blog and in the feed. It is a different function than the multiple page post concept. It does, however, shorten the post for those viewing it on the front page and feed, which is a nice courtesy if the post is really long.
Remotecontrolceo: Hey, Greg! What do you mean by the CSS to make the text flow around it. It, what? The “table of contents” for the series? Put it in a DIV with a float to the right or left and it will shift over and the text will flow around it. But the best place is at the bottom of the post in a link, no floating or special CSS involved. When the reader gets to the end of the post, they can move forwards or backwards in the series. Include links to the other parts of the series within the post to match ideas with posts.
While I appreciate your candor here on the subject of multiple page posts, I think you should apply the same logic to your own blog. Many of your posts use the (more…
feature and cause readers to have to jump to another page to continue reading (yeah, almost the same thing you are railing against here). And for those like me who read on a feedreader (Google Reader, w00t!), we have to go through the hoop as well. This is bad for me b/c your blog is blocked at my place of work (everything on WordPress.com is blocked there).
I know you have your reasons for using this feature, but just think about it. Thanks!
Well, I tolerate multiple-page posts ONLY IF the author states what’s next on the pages, instead of just Page 2, 3, 4.
Interesting article. I’m one of these people who has believed the myth that readers won’t read to the end of a long article–or a variation of, anyway, wherein you never, never make the page too long as people hate scrolling to the end. It’s poor design. (And I’m including ‘more …’ here, not just new pages.)
Yet I notice that when I log onto the newspapers and read the multi-page articles, the first thing I do, always, is click the single page version.
I may need to rethink my strategy.
I really don’t get the idea of splitting a post up because it’s really annoying and personally i will very rarely click the “more” link or the next page link. By using this technique your basically making your visitors jump through hoops just to read your content…
John
On the subject of the “read more” issue. This is a separate but slightly related issue. The More allows bloggers to do two things: limit the length of posts on the front page of their blog and their feeds.
If you are scrolling the front page of a blog or a feed and the topic is not of interest, you can quickly move to the next post without scrolling down, down, down, and down, through the post to get to the next. There currently isn’t a shortcut that drops you from post 1 to post 3. You have to scroll. The same applies to feeds. If the article isn’t of interest, you have to scroll and scroll and scroll.
I have gotten a LOT of complaints from reader about the length of my blog posts. I also have a LOT of content theft via my feeds. Since they HIGHLY outweigh those who want my blog as a full post feed, on long posts, I limit them with the More option. Some use Excerpt instead of full content on their front page, so their feeds remain whole. There are a lot of options you can do with the front page and feeds.
But land on a post on my blog from a search engine, feed reader, category or tag listing, and you will get the WHOLE POST, not the post broken up into bits and pieces, wasting time and bandwidth to click and click and click, or hunt (I know there is more to this somewhere…
for the link to click and click and click to get to the end of the article and the information you want and need.
When you do a search on a blog, does it include the multiple page post sections in your search, treating it like one post? So when you click on the search results it takes you to that section or to the page one of the post pages? Have you tried it? Let me know how that works for you and for your readers if you force them to hunt too hard for the information they want and need.
My rant is over the breaking up of a post into multiple parts and the painful experience readers have with that technique. I’ll leave my rant for the More link for another post.
I have experienced bloggers who deliberately choose to use the “more tag” to in their words create “a teaser” and increase their stats and to get more posts on their front page. When I see a habit like this forming I simply stop visiting the blog in question.
With the prevalent use of Excerpts and More, how would you honestly know if it was done to cheat or not? It is mostly a design and “helpful” decision, helping readers to “skim” for essential information not get overloaded. Again, this is a tangent and not the topic of this post.
Agree that you should not use multiple pages for the article. Found this article a great read about multiple pages.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Lorelle! If I have to click through to several pages, nine times out of ten I just leave. It’s extremely annoying. It’s manipulative and inconsiderate of the readers’ time, and yes, it’s almost always accompanied by intrusive ads. I don’t have anything against ads–I have some as well–but don’t make me click (and wait for the external javascript-stacked page to load!) just to boost your stats.
As far as the “read more” thing goes, I see nothing wrong with it. In fact, I see it as a courtesy so I don’t have to scroll through a looooong post to scan the rest of the content on the front page. It makes for quicker scanning, and let’s face it–that’s what most people do at first when at a blog. I use the “collapsible more” plugin, though, so readers aren’t forced to reload my whole page again, though (mine’s pretty image-heavy). Also, it’s often necessary when a post contains a lot of pictures or other media if you want to save load time for those with less than optimal connections. (Those 56K and IE6 readers are still out there, much to my never-ending heartache!)
Hi Lorelle, when I was putting up my article (consisting of several parts e.g. facts, symptoms, remedies, etc) as a blog post, I did consider about chopping it up to multiple pages of up to 3 so that the post wouldn’t look so long and I thought that meant continuity. But in the end, the article was split to posts rather than pages because if the content is to benefit the reader, that reader who arrives at my blog because of a descriptive title should can get some answers on the landing page.
Clara
There is one, and *only* one case where I have ever found multi-page entries to make sense. And that is hardware review sites.
When a geek is doing a hardware review, the article naturally breaks up into multiple sections. Sections describing the box/packing materials, sections describing the look of the thing, sections describing the functionality (with screenshots), sections describing benchmarking (with lots of graphs and comparisons to other bits of hardware), and finally a summary page or two.
When these are done, and a Table of Contents is displayed on every page, allowing you to click straight to, say, the benchmarks, then yes, the multi-page aspect is *very* useful indeed.
But that’s the only case. And it also only work because there is a descriptive Table of Contents. Without that, with just numbered pages, it would not work.
When I was putting up my article (consisting of several parts e.g. facts, symptoms, remedies, etc) as a blog post, I thought about chopping it up to multiple pages of up to 3 so that the post wouldn’t look so long and I thought that meant continuity. But in the end, the article was split to posts rather than pages because if the content is to benefit the reader, then when a reader who arrives at my blog because of a descriptive title should can get the relevant answers on the first landing page.
Thanks for the tip about using the Print View. I’d never thought to do that, but have just applied it to an article on a newspaper site. Just brilliant!
And re the scrolling issue you mention above - to see all the articles on the front page - well, a list of recent posts in the sidebar would serve as a nice index, and be more useful as it would direct attention beyond the front page too.
I’m also one that likes to read the print version of s website. It’s easier to read, all on one page, and sometimes the font is resizable.
For reviews and posts which can be broken down in to discrete chunks I think multi-page posts work well.
Although I agree somewhat with your point, but I don’t think it’s because of “multiple page post” feature. It all comes down to the author who is writing the multiple page. If you as the author/writer make the reader go through all the pages to get the main point, then it’s really YOUR FAULT.
I also agree with the commenter who mentioned that next page links should indicate what they are about.
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