One Big Page vs Several Smaller Pages

[privatefleet]

OK I have had someone furiously writing content for me over the last few weeks and they have finally finished.

It's a glossary of technical terms and consists of quality unique content which is somewhat keyword rich.

It should be a great resource for my web visitors but I also want to maximise SEO benefit.

So my question is, do I put it all in one big page from A to Z or split it up into a different page for each item, from an SEO point of view?

Here are the benefits of each method as I see it:

One big page:

Can concentrate IBLs into a solitary page.
Less likely to get a Supplemental Index issue.
Possibly easier for visitors to navigate? (although a single page this size might be cumbersome too)

Lots smaller pages:

Can target meta data, page title etc to each glossary item
Anchor text of IBLs likely to be more targeted
Avoids any potential "Page Size Penalty" (if such a thing exists?)

FYI, there are about 160 terms described each with about 270 words. A total of 43,383 words all up!

Thanks in advance!

[tamecrow]

Split the content into topics. This will make the information much easier to find and the pages will then have a focus and narrow topic of their own, which will aid them in ranking for keywords pertaining to those topics.

[inertia]

Assuming the information you are presenting isn't all about the same thing/product/keyword, by putting it all on one page you are missing out on search engine positions. For example if your info is about red, blue and green widgets and you place that all on one page you will essentially be optimising the page for a myriad of keywords. Split this up into one page about blue widgets, one about red widgets etc etc. and you will be able to specifically optimise each page individually for their relevant phrase and all will perform well.

I don't think this is a case of one big page or 160 little ones. Why not 40 medium sized ones? Id do it like tamecrow says break it all up into relevant areas then break that up into relevant categories. We never usually build pages with more than 350 words, for the sake of the user. What do other people think about this?

You've got to think about the user as well. All that info on one page wont be that great for them.

[chrisJumbo]

We have a FAQ page that consists of one page. We try to keep it optimized for longer tail phrases, but also wanted it to be easy for the user. We didn't want the user to have to keep going back and forth between pages.

On the other hand, if your subject matter is diverse enough and can be grouped together as the others have suggested, you will probably get a better SEO benefit.

Keep the users in mind and design for what is best for them.

cd :O)

[bj]

Maybe you can have some sort of pulldown or drop down menu with a list of ALL glossary terms, with links to each one (use #id links to each one on each page) and put that on all the glossary pages. But break the groupings into ones that seem to belong together, the way inertia suggested.

NOT alpha. That would do you much less good.

[rdarling]

You could consider one page if you are using any type of ajax technology that allows a show-hide type of functionality - gives the user more reason to stay and keep exploring without overwhelming them with text. And allows you and/or users to target specific places on the page for bookmarking or reference.

OTOH, do you have any sort of sponsors on your site where you are selling pageviews? That would be another reason to split into pages.

I know for myself I am more likely to explore within a page than click thru to a lot of pages. Blogs have gotten me in the habit of scrolling and using command/control-F to find what I want on a long page. You could even post that at the top as a user tip.

[mawells]

Why not use some Javascript and have a "pop-up" when someone clicks on the word in the text?

I use a script that I got from dynamicdrive.com and it works very well and, YES, the search engine can index the content because the content is a <div> that is visible when someone clicks on the link. So whenever you refer to a technical word or phrase, simply make it a link that will pop up the meaning of that word or phrase. Makes it very convenient for the site visitor.

You can find the script I use at Dynamic Drive DHTML Scripts- Drop down/ Overlapping Content script

[maniactive]

Bust it into separate pages. Five reasons why:

1. Design with usability in mind.

Who wants to vertical scroll down a long list to get to what they want? In the real world, would you give your audience a loooooong scrolling piece of paper -- or a booklet with an index?

2. Design with satisfaction in mind.

There's a reason Wikipedia sections each topic into a separate page. If I'm interested in English Setters, I don't want to scroll past a section about English Bulldogs.

3. Design with search in mind.

Separating content into discrete pages lets the spiders index better. As a blogger who links out, I'm more likely to link -- with anchor text -- to a page that describes my topic. If I'm writing a post about "English Setters" -- I'm not going to point my readers to a page about every dog on the planet and tell my readers to try to find the paragraph I mean. And what if someone else is blogging about "English Bulldogs"? The spiders will see all kinds of different anchor text coming into one huge page -- which makes it difficult for the spider to figure out just what the heck the page is all about. Separating it out makes it easy for people to link to you.

4. Design with the future in mind.

As time goes by, you'll test those pages. You'll add more content. You'll clarify. You'll tighten your copy. You might add pictures, video. You'll do it one page at a time, one term at a time. This approach gives you a framework for growing a more friendly, searchable, and satisfying experience for your audience.

5. Design with measuring in mind.

You'll also find out which pages are attractive to visitors. Learn from this information to create additional, more attractive resources.

[privatefleet]

Thanks heaps for the replies everyone.

Some great points made there. I would agree that a halfway solution (eg 40 medium sized pages) could well be the best idea but I can't see how I can break these definitions up like this. Except by alphabet which, whilst might make it easier for visitors won't help with optimisation really.

To better illustrate, these are automotive terms. Here are the A's to give you an idea-

ACCELERATION
ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
AFTER-MARKET PRODUCTS
AIR CONDITIONING
AIRBAGS
ALL TERRAIN VEHICLE (ATV)
ALL WHEEL DRIVE (AWD)
ALLOY WHEELS
ALTERNATOR
ANCAP
ANTI-LOCK BRAKING SYSTEM (ABS)
AQUAPLANING
AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION

Pretty hard to categorise into topics I think.... certainly for more than a couple of broad ones anyway.

I think done well either method can work well for the user using the right design & functionality so it really does come down to SEO benefit. And it's not for advertsiing so page views aren't important.

I'd go the lots pages option for sure if I weren't concerned about a Supplemental Index issue but I am from previous experience, when I've added a heap of new poages and the link juice has been diluted so much that most of the pages don't make the full index. On the other hand, how often do you see monster pages pop up in SERPs? If not, wht not - surely it can't be too hard to get a single page in the full index and cram it with 1,000's upon 1,000's of potential search terms? Because this doesn't seem to work, I suspect Google might have a weighting or even a cut-off for pages of a certain size.

Any more thoughts? Are either of these two concerns justified?

[blitzen]

I agree with everyone else to break it up into topics.
You can have an index page with all words that link to the individual pages for the benefit of the user (not SE).

I dislike glossaries that have index links like

A .. B .. C ..

because I never know exactly what I'm looking for. E.g., should I be looking for "luggage" (L), "purse" (P), "suitcase" (S), or "box (B)"?
If these were categorized, then I would look under "Travel Terms" and can scan the page to find the correct term.

Regarding your post just above, look in an owner's manual or troubleshooting manual for ideas on topics. Look at the table of contents.
Some terms may be in more than one topic.

[meadrose]

From an SEO standpoint a bunch of small pages would be better BUT...

You would need to optimize each one for its term including Title tag, <H1> or <H2> as well as <img alt=""> and sufficient occurrences in the text to elevate total phrase percentage on the page to between 3 and 5% to really get an advantage.

To do so might be cumbersome for the reader, and internet readers click off FAST.

You might be better off coming up with intuitive category pages, each of which displays 5 glossary terms per column so the viewer and eyeball it in 2 seconds.

Catch my music blog: The Vagabond Musician

[webworld]

Hi Everyone,

This is a very interesting topic for me and I'd appreciate if I could ask for advice also. We are in process of developing a glossary of music terms for our backingtracks/classical music sites. This involves A-Z definitions of specific terms (words and phrases) in various traditional languages ... something like 20,000 in total.

I agree from an SEO POV the multiple page approach might be desirable in such cases as (say) privatefleet with his automotive parts. However, doesn't it really depend how people will want to use the end product? Seems to me, if you want to know what allegro is and you are looking at an A-Z list of terms, you would start with the A section? How else could you categorise it? Maybe under 'Fast' or 'Lively'???

Doesn't it come back to giving the user what seems the most logical (and intuitive??) process, regardless of the SEO value??

I would really like to hear from anyone with a point of view on this.

Thanks.
Ron S

[subsystems]

I'd have to agree that sperate pages for the terms but I'd add that in recent times I've been noticing a new kind of search that is gaining in popularity. I'm not even sure if it has a name yet.
The way it works is there is a standard text search box but as you type a pulldown opens with a list of possible matches to what you have begun to type. Sort of an Intellisence type thing. But, after giving it some thought I think the first few items in the list should be the most popularly searched terms that match what you are starting to type. Then after those itmes the list would continue with the alphabetic options.
Example: You begin to type "A" The list would open and the first item might be AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION, ANTI-LOCK BRAKES then a seperator line and then ACCELERATION, ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, AFTER-MARKET PRODUCTS, AIR CONDITIONING...

I think it is being done is AJAX or something. I'd love to add this to my site but I haven't figured out how it is being done yet. Has be perplexed because of the speed that it is being done at.
If you want to see one of the better versions of this checkout Netflix Online Movie Rentals - Rent DVDs, Classic Films to DVD New Releases. Of course their's is specific to finding movies. But you get the idea.
Hopefully others reading this will know more about it than I and will post links or helpful ideas because it really helps the useability of the search.

[privatefleet]

Laura, I think you summed it up best of all. However what about the SI issue?

Wouldn't adding all these pages be spreading everything a little bit too thin?

No good having all these lovely individual pages, well optimised (correct meta data & KW density) , perhaps with an image or two but nobody sees it.

Blitzen, great idea about consulting an owners maunual for topis - that may well help. Can't imagine there would be more than a handful though and I can't really see much more benefit having 5 pages rather than one page. Anyway thanks & I'll check that out today.

I think I'm leaning towards the individual pages. Just thinking about it now, look at these dictionary sites - they have 100,000's pages, one for each word and they seem to do OK. Do a search for "Definition <unusualword>" and these sites invariably pop up first. However even they (with 100,000's IBLs) can still suffer from the SI issue.

Look at this analysis:

Supplemental Ratio for Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus. Free access.
64.89%

Google has a total of 470000 pages indexed from Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus. Free access.
165000 are in the main index
305000 are in the supplemental index

[jaldridge]

I've been testing this a lot lately...and I mean A LOT.

It is common knowledge that having a little text on a page can easily get it dumped in the supplemental index.

BUT, the same can happen if you have too much text.

I first noticed this because I used to have a very long page with loads of properties all listed on it. It was very slow to load but Google consistantly ranked it at #3 for months. Then one day I decided to shoren to page considerably to a much more normal size and when Google re-indexed it it shot to #1. I didn't make any other changes.

So I tested this with some other pages and found the same effect. Then I created new very long content heavy pages and most went supplemental straight away and they are still there.

I think the theory behind it is that if you are searching for a particular phrase and come to a huge page, you could spend some time trying to find that bit of information that you are interested. I think with long pages Google does penalise them a little as they are not the most user friendly.

So my advice would be to definitely create well optimised normal length pages (say 300 - 500 words). Don't go for the long page solution, it's not good for ranking and definitely not good for your visitors.

[James Bull]

I think Laura has summed it up pretty well.

If there are 43,000 words, then a single page is out of the question.

Put your readers first, what works for them will ultimately get you the best results.

Build it so it's easy to use, and easy for you to update.

For what it's worth, here's my glossary as an example. It's definitely a work in progress and will one day have around 150 entries. I'm sticking with a simple index page.

[arius]

How about something like this: Test Kit FAQ - TestCountry Frequently Asked Questions

[pauliii]

Your list of topics, as you point out, defies categorization . . . but that is what search engines do, categorize.
None of your key words will have enough impact to rank highly. If you can't categorize, then neither can a search engine.

[Orion]

remember don't link all 160 terms from a single page...

google doesn't take too kindly to pages with more than 100 links.

I like the idea of A, B, C, D, E pages also the ajax accordion or collapsible panels to display the term definitions.

Also don't forget to use <dl><dt></dt><dd></dd></dl> for each term as this is the actual HTML for that and will give you benefits in accessibility and SEO...

[darren13]

Hi,

We have a site with portfolio pages - we have a separate page for each job in our portfolio. Some jobs have a 'tree like' structure, in that the main job is an extension, but roofing and fitting a kitchen are also involved.

If I can give each job it's own page with relevant information, I think that is more relevant to our visitors than having the whole job on one page, as it's a struggle to get all the information from, say a big 2 storey extension - the pages just get very very long!

Darren.

[richard-s]

Almost my first web-page - many, many years ago - was a glossary of medieval terms. (Based on the excellent list first produced by Michael Adams aka Morgoth in 1988.) That was all long before the advent of Wikipedia etc.

However, we now have Wikipedia and many other reference sources. So, the question is: What can my glossaries provide which is different and hopefully better?

At present, I aim to offer:

* Very fast page loading
* "Personalisation" - definitions refer to my web-site
* Ability to "browse" rather than only to see a single answer

This glossary started as a single page; when it grew too large, it was then subdivided alphabetically into several separate pages; particular topics such as "money terms" and "ancient measures" now have their own separate glossaries.

Richard