Very Long Pages

[glengara]

I'm working on a number of pages that each have 2000 words or so; and would prefer not to break them up so that each can be downloaded in it's entirety.

A solution I'm considering is giving the appearance of multiple pages by using different urls that will bring the viewer to the particular category on the same page.
Any downside to this solution re the SEs?

[Sharon & Roy]

Nope

As far as we know, as long as your keyword density remains at the optimized level you'll be fine with regards to SEO. We really don't think that the SE put a limit on the amount of words a page can have.

[highman]

glengara , the only problem you may encounter is if the page exceeds 100k in file size, google (if my memory is correct) for one will not entertain any page over this size.

>A solution I'm considering is giving the appearance of multiple pages by using different urls that will bring the viewer to the particular category on the same page.

I presume you are reffering to anchors on the page, and a list of urls pointing to the same page but with a different anchor reference?
I have seen this done many times, It would not be my solution (I would break the pages up) but you should be OK if that is the way you wish to display your content

[Mel]

Hi Glengara:

A few months ago I did some research on SE limits and summarized them on 3 pages Here (http://search-engine-optimization.ecommercehosts.com/se_data_d.htm) .I really didn't turn up anything that said we won't spider you page if it is more than so long, but did find some references to Google preferring pages between 50-600 words long.

I had a similar problem when doing that site and solved by naming the pages similarly, and putting continued links to the next page. This also gives you more ways for the SEs to rank your pages.

[MazY]

Originally posted by Mel
but did find some references to Google preferring pages between 50-600 words long.

Should that be 500? Otherwise it leaves a might big gap!

[Mel]

Hi MazY

Yep the exact quote was something like " a wide range of between 50 to 600 words on a page"

[MazY]

Well that clears that up nicely then! lol. Go for anywhere between 50 and 600 words!

Hmmm.... Could be 51, could be 599.... Hmmmm....

[highman]

Just to clear things up i have seen pagesc ranking at #1 with 5 words on

So anywhere between 5 and infinity should do it .... lol

[MazY]

Originally posted by highman
So anywhere between 5 and infinity should do it .... lol

There ya go, Mel. So now why can't you be this exact? lol

[ihelpyou]

Just to clear things up i have seen pagesc ranking at #1 with 5 words on

oh yes. As we speak.

[glengara]

...and another one bites the dust.....

[Advisor]

In my opinion, the search engines generally like long pages. However, if you break your page up into different pages, you can focus each page on 2 or 3 phrases and optimize them accordingly. This will give you many more opportunities to get ranked high, and with many more keyphrases. You can use different phrases on each page, with some overlap to keep your consistent theme. Most people don't want to read a long scrolling page. Why do you feel that you must keep it one page? Usability wise, it's probably not a good idea.

Jill

[glengara]

I'm on an expensive dial-up account, and I know how annoying it is to have to save 3-4 short pages of the same article to read offline. I was just looking at ways where one click did the trick.

[highman]

you could aways put a link to a printer friendly copy of the text but remember to exclude it from robots with your robots.txt file (in case of duplicate content problems)

[glengara]

Interesting suggestion Highman, will I be able to include multiple pages using that solution?

[highman]

How I would do it:

Split your pages up into readable chunks, each with their own heading, each targeted at a keyphrase. Link all these together in a 'pamphlet' style with mini index.
Then provide a summary / printer fiendly page (put link in mini index) containing all the text (2000 words) but on a vanilla white page with table width set to 600 (printer fiendly, you may want to check that).

Then exclude this printer fiendly page using your robots.txt file

[glengara]

Ta very much, and 'night all.

[JuniorHarris]

Very good tip highman!~ I was reading thinking exactly the same thing...and you saved me from typing it!~

Also, good point to note about duplicate content, which could be a concern for unique URLs which may anchor in different positions in the same document.

[rmridgew]

from what i understand, spiders do have a time-out when indexing pages, as low as 6 seconds

[ihelpyou]

Yes, that may be correct but most spiders can go thru a 100K page in about 2 seconds.

[Kal]

Just noticed this thread. Bless you Mel for doing all that research and making those tables available to us here in the forum. Fantastic stuff!