
Is there a point to paginating articles online? - ivoflipse
http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/21375/is-there-a-point-to-paginating-articles-online
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6ren
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)).

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diminish
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.

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oskarth
When you said infinite scrolling, I assume you mean content that keeps getting
added as you go further down the page (Facebook-style)?

In that case I agree with you, but when it comes to articles the whole article
could just as well be loaded instantly, in my opinion.

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diminish
i mean what you understood, i agree totally with you.

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codeka
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...

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stingraycharles
_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:

[https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a...](https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182)

"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.

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kd0amg
FWIW, GMail loads a new ad when I open an email.

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Animus7
This is true and a good point.

But obviously Google gets to call the shots with their own services. They only
answer to their customers, who aren't whining about this.

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aes256
Just a heads-up for any Chrome users out there who aren't aware; AutoPatchWork
does wonders for eliminating the annoyance of pagination...

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aeolcjbaammbkgaiag...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aeolcjbaammbkgaiagooljfdepnjmkfd)

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twelvechairs
Wow. Thanks. Works great.

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.

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mattmillr
Short of reading the source code for the plugin, you can't know for sure.
That's why Chrome just warns you that it can access your browsing activity,
that's all you can know. You have to decide whether or not you trust the
plugin author with that access.

Assuming (a) the plugin can access your data and (b) the plugin can
communicate with some external system, there is no way* to either prohibit the
plugin from sending your data to that external system or universally detect
that it is doign it.

* No technical way. Of course you can use contracts, TOS, & other legal methods.

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valuegram
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.

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alexchamberlain
In the long term, wouldn't usability increase page views?

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ddunkin
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.

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eslachance
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.

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d_jackson_kf
Not from a readers perspective. It's annoying.

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joshwa
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.

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phlsa
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.

~~~
randomdata
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.

~~~
phlsa
Pagination -- from a user's perspective -- has nothing todo with computation.

To appreciate what pagination does, just imagine a 500 page book. Now imagine
having to read it on an ancient scroll. Pages make it easier for our brains to
segment the information of a book or a long article by giving us a higher
order rhythm within the content.

Or just take it one step further: why not eliminate line breaks? They're just
as arbitrary as page breaks and there is no technical limitation on horizontal
scrolling. But again, segmentation helps to form a mental model of the
content.

~~~
randomdata
A common way to break the flow of long pages of text is to encapsulate
sections within boxes, so to speak. You've probably seen this in word
processors, or PDF viewers, to name a couple of prevalent examples.

This also is how many of the popular "reader" applications display the
paginated content, and there is no reason a web page couldn't be designed that
way from the beginning as well. Or, with the number of amazing designers out
there, maybe something completely different.

I agree breaks are important, I'm just not sure multi-request pagination is
the best interface for that. We only accept it because it is often necessary
due to computing limitations.

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jes5199
I dislike the page metaphor, because, at least in PDFs and most word
processors, it means that the page is a fixed _width_ and the text won't
reflow to fit my window. If I zoom in, I have to scroll left and right as I
read each line! Very annoying.

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mhb
What are the user click results of displaying the pagination as shown with the
"Full story" option?

Maybe this is one of those things where the obvious answer isn't what users
actually do or prefer for some reason.

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toemetoch
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"?

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3242670>

edit:link

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Rudism
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.

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eli
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.

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Tooluka
The only reason is to inspire people to write Readability and similar addons.
And another reason is to inspire people to create adtrash-free sites.

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Coswyn
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.

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username3
If you click full story or next page, it allows the site to know how much you
read.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
This is also possible via scroll position sampling, but it requires a bit more
technology.

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jes5199
Is there a good library for that? It would be a major pain to roll your own
cross-browser scrollbar sampling code that could correctly tell you what text
was on the screen at each sample (compensating for different layout engines,
fonts, browser sizes, and zoom levels)

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forgetcolor
google encourages pagination with their 3 ads/page limit. seems like the limit
should be based on quantity of content, not a per page metric.

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dredmorbius
So, does n readers * m pages * 3 ads really matter significantly vs. 3m pages?

On a net conversion basis, do the extra impressions matter, or is this all
stuff that people just filter (banner blindness, adblock, whatever) anyway?

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shalmanese
Does CPC increase with pagination or only CPI? Why are advertisers still
buying on CPI and not CPC?

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pcopley
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."

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hullo
this is completely incorrect. the majority of (non-adsense) ads are still sold
on a CPM impression basis. the rates you get will be better if you have a
solid click through rate, however.

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tar
More page views.

