Obviously ads. Generally I prefer single page (+ Readability), but was surprised that sometimes I prefer multiple pages. I think it's when they act a bit like chapters, giving you a sense of completion. Maybe it's when the content is dense and/or boring. It also makes it easier to
"hold your place", if you need to do something else (like research something in the article). I'm one of those people who highlights text to keep my place on the page (so I have to adblock some sites' JS that hijacks highlighting (e.g. NYTimes)).
I agree with all of this. And I also find, both as a reader and writer, that footnotes come across better if paginated. Of course, on the web you have options like having the footnotes popup on hover or putting them to the left or right margins that aren't really available in print.
Thank you for highlighting the horrible (standards breaking IMHO) behavior on the NYTimes website. I, like you highlight words to keep my place in long articles as I scroll, and that 'feature' of the NYTimes site frustrates me more than any.
From a user perspective, short pages in pagination annoy but recently i started to get annoyed with infinite scrolling, too. The best approach changes with time.
I once worked on a redesign for a site, and one of the sections I worked on was the "photo gallery" section. I had a beautiful JavaScript-based photo gallery which had nice transitions between photos, it was pretty slick and nice and fast. It even degraded to full page-loads if you didn't have JavaScript enabled.
In the end, I had to take out my beautiful JavaScript-based gallery and present the "degraded" experience all the time because after it went live, pageviews dropped "dramatically" and the ad people didn't like that.
In retrospect, I probably could've just refreshed the ads via JavaScript when I transitioned to a different photo, but the potential drop in ad revenue meant I was having to work quickly...
In retrospect, I probably could've just refreshed the ads via JavaScript when I transitioned to a different photo
Dynamically refreshing ads usually is not allowed with ad networks, since it can be abused to inflate adviews. For example, look at the AdSense policy:
"Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include, but are not limited to, repeated manual clicks or impressions, automated click and impression generating tools and the use of robots or deceptive software. "
Whether or not using javascript falls under the category of "impression generating tools" is probably open for discussion, but I wouldn't be surprised if Google didn't like this.
One question I always have adding these chrome plugins though: when it says "[plugin] can access all your browsing activity", how do I know whether it is (or isn't) sending all of my browsing activity to someone without my knowledge/permission? I wish chrome plugins provided more information on this.
I worked as a contract developer for a media website for a couple years. The top priority in all decisions was how to increase ad revenue, since this was their one source of income. If it was a choice of usability or page views taking precedence, page views would win every time.
Increasing page views (like mentioned in this article) was important to them because:
1) It increased the opportunity to feed ads and generate more revenue.
2) Part of their valuation was based on page views, so if they were to be acquired, this improved their valuation.
Unfortunately, usability was often hurt in the process.
How much (if at all) were uniques v. pageviews taken into account? Was it better to have 10,000 people visit the site twice a day or 2,000 people ten times a day?
Ads or not, I just can't stomach reading long non-paginated articles on mobile. Safari mobile rarely keeps view-state when I come back. Without a decent scroll mechanism, it's a lot of finger flicking to try to remember where I was when reading a long article. Pagination lets me bookmark where I left off on longer articles.
I've found that especially in Mobile browsing, the pagination ends up offering little advantage to anyone, beyond statistics. Mobile versions of news sites will often not have ads, only a small header, the text and the pagination links, so I'm not sure why they would continue to use the technique.
On top of this, I find it very irritating when reading a paginated news article that split to a new page right smack in the middle of a sentence. And it's happened more often than I'd care to remember.
It would be better if the IAB et al used uniques + time-on-site, rather than raw pageviews/impressions. Most medium-to-high-traffic sites have effectively infinite inventory, and some portion of that almost always gets sold as remainder.
For pagination, why not count a scroll-down (and thus viewing of an extra ad further down the page?) as a pageview? Or, again, time-on-site or time-on-page or something that better reflects user attention.
From a user interface perspective, paging has one great benefit. It provides structure, especially to long texts with no images or layout cues. Think of it as an extended version of the paragraph: a tool of composition that gives readers subtle navigation cues within a text.
If paging means more load time, bad results in search or the like, that's obviously a bad thing.
Pagination feels like it was one of those things born out of need by computational limitations, and then was taken as "just the way things are" by designers.
In a world of infinite computing resources, I see no reason to provide multiple pages at all. Designs can accommodate the data to make it work nicely for the end user.
This reminds me of the "life below 600 px" story from last week [1]. So yes, there is a reason to do multi-page content from that point of view.
Unfortunately, it's used as a cheap trick to smear limited content over pages that are riddled with ads. I hope the folks who promote this realise they're making visitors become immune to ads. Anyone remember that television layout from "Idiocracy"?
Most of these sites will have very detailed monitoring of performance/revenue generated by their ads. In all likelihood they've A/B tested ad impressions, clicks, conversions, and revenue generated by a single-page article versus the same on a paginated article, and discovered that (intuitively) spreading the content out over multiple pages with more opportunities to display ads gives better results. Maybe it's only marginally better, but in the world of online advertising even the tiniest improvement in conversions can mean huge changes in revenue when you throw enough users at it. The fact that some users may be annoyed by or made "immune" to ads is moot. They'll go where the money is.
I worked on the redesign of a business news site and there were a fair number of vocal readers who really preferred paginating long articles.
Maybe it would be different today since everyone is using fixed headers and footers and sidebars that follow you, but if those aren't present it kinda sucks for the reader to get to the bottom of a long page and having to scroll way back up to find a nav bar.
Yes, you can link directly to a set of results. And if you go the route of sites like Kickstarter that automagically update the URL as you scroll, you still avoid having to load unintended content when you reload it for that set of results.
Website owners don't like CPC because the advertisers try to push branded ads that don't ask for a click (essentially free advertising). It was only with the advent of Adsense that CPC became acceptable due to super efficient targeting, and even then it's often used as a last resort to fill unsold space.
Advertisers want CPC/CPA because it allows them to sit back and get the publishers to do the work, whereas CPM allows the publisher to concentrate on their website's content rather than targeting someone else's ads.
I don't think anyone is purchasing on CPI anymore. What happens is with the multiple pageviews the odds of a click go up. It's not linear, so you won't get 3x the revenue on a 3-page article v. a 1-page article, but it's still an increase.
I've found Cracked is pretty bad with this. "Oh, you wanted to look at a Top 10 list? Here it is over 4 pages."
[+] [-] 6ren|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timwiseman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diminish|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] codeka|14 years ago|reply
In the end, I had to take out my beautiful JavaScript-based gallery and present the "degraded" experience all the time because after it went live, pageviews dropped "dramatically" and the ad people didn't like that.
In retrospect, I probably could've just refreshed the ads via JavaScript when I transitioned to a different photo, but the potential drop in ad revenue meant I was having to work quickly...
[+] [-] stingraycharles|14 years ago|reply
Dynamically refreshing ads usually is not allowed with ad networks, since it can be abused to inflate adviews. For example, look at the AdSense policy:
https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...
"Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include, but are not limited to, repeated manual clicks or impressions, automated click and impression generating tools and the use of robots or deceptive software. "
Whether or not using javascript falls under the category of "impression generating tools" is probably open for discussion, but I wouldn't be surprised if Google didn't like this.
[+] [-] dredmorbius|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aes256|14 years ago|reply
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aeolcjbaammbkgaiag...
[+] [-] twelvechairs|14 years ago|reply
One question I always have adding these chrome plugins though: when it says "[plugin] can access all your browsing activity", how do I know whether it is (or isn't) sending all of my browsing activity to someone without my knowledge/permission? I wish chrome plugins provided more information on this.
[+] [-] valuegram|14 years ago|reply
Increasing page views (like mentioned in this article) was important to them because:
1) It increased the opportunity to feed ads and generate more revenue.
2) Part of their valuation was based on page views, so if they were to be acquired, this improved their valuation.
Unfortunately, usability was often hurt in the process.
[+] [-] alexchamberlain|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcopley|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddunkin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eslachance|14 years ago|reply
On top of this, I find it very irritating when reading a paginated news article that split to a new page right smack in the middle of a sentence. And it's happened more often than I'd care to remember.
[+] [-] d_jackson_kf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshwa|14 years ago|reply
For pagination, why not count a scroll-down (and thus viewing of an extra ad further down the page?) as a pageview? Or, again, time-on-site or time-on-page or something that better reflects user attention.
[+] [-] phlsa|14 years ago|reply
If paging means more load time, bad results in search or the like, that's obviously a bad thing.
[+] [-] randomdata|14 years ago|reply
In a world of infinite computing resources, I see no reason to provide multiple pages at all. Designs can accommodate the data to make it work nicely for the end user.
[+] [-] mhb|14 years ago|reply
Maybe this is one of those things where the obvious answer isn't what users actually do or prefer for some reason.
[+] [-] toemetoch|14 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, it's used as a cheap trick to smear limited content over pages that are riddled with ads. I hope the folks who promote this realise they're making visitors become immune to ads. Anyone remember that television layout from "Idiocracy"?
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3242670
edit:link
[+] [-] Rudism|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tooluka|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|14 years ago|reply
Maybe it would be different today since everyone is using fixed headers and footers and sidebars that follow you, but if those aren't present it kinda sucks for the reader to get to the bottom of a long page and having to scroll way back up to find a nav bar.
[+] [-] Coswyn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] username3|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonwatkinspdx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forgetcolor|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|14 years ago|reply
On a net conversion basis, do the extra impressions matter, or is this all stuff that people just filter (banner blindness, adblock, whatever) anyway?
[+] [-] shalmanese|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ticks|14 years ago|reply
Advertisers want CPC/CPA because it allows them to sit back and get the publishers to do the work, whereas CPM allows the publisher to concentrate on their website's content rather than targeting someone else's ads.
[+] [-] pcopley|14 years ago|reply
I've found Cracked is pretty bad with this. "Oh, you wanted to look at a Top 10 list? Here it is over 4 pages."
[+] [-] tar|14 years ago|reply