Multi-Paged Posts: Yea or Nay?

With the digital ink still drying on James’ five-page post on our bgEngine, I found David Peralty at Blogging Pro supporting a recent “rant” by Lorelle VanFossen, denouncing multi-paged posts. Specifically, she ended her post with…

I have yet to come up with a single good, positive reason to break up a blog post. Have you?

Lorelle is a Wordpress rockstar, and an inspiration for me as I do my part to nurture and raise the young Boldly Going sites, and move my personal Web presence beyond “test posts.” So, it’s with a bit of unease that I disagree with her.

Lorelle sees splitting posts as interference to a reader’s thinking process, and believes that sites split posts just to get more page views. She sees splitting posts into pages as “old thinking:”

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.

I guess my main disagreement is right there: yes, pages are old thinking. But, before pages, there were scrolls - long, one-page, draping scrolls. We moved from non-paginated print media because that was old thinking.

So, maybe the innovations in publishing are a bit circular. Or, maybe this isn’t just a black-and-white / pages-or-scrolling issue. Maybe the decision to paginate or not lies in several factors - most importantly, anticipating the audience’s preference.

Where I agree 100% with Lorelle is when pages on posts are poorly executed…

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.

For me personally, I like long posts split into pages. I think in pages. The act of going to a next page, albeit a virtual one, gives my brain a pause that it has come to expect from being raised on books. Pages might be old thinking, but sometimes new thinking makes my head hurt, and makes me want to stop doing what is causing the pain (like a long, scrolling post). Where Lorelle argues pages drive readers away, I would argue long posts might do the same. Again, it’s the fickle fancies of the readers, and understanding what those are.

So, I invite one and all to enter their opinion into this, one of our first “conversations” on BG - I look forward to some good thoughts within our comments section below. Also, carry your thoughts over to Lorelle , and to Blogging Pro.

06/15/2007 | Conversations | Comments

One Response to “Multi-Paged Posts: Yea or Nay?”

Posted by: James D Kirk - 06/15/2007

Well, to defend myself (!) I have to say that I, personally, am also a fan of the long post/page of text. While posting, I do my best to insert effective page “distractions” and sub-headers for the scanners of the crowd. While attempting to employ good copy writing techniques, I also realize that a post (that post, specifically) was not a sales letter or a marketing piece, which many top marketers say longer pieces are more effective than shorter/paginated pieces.

My feeling is that people would rather simply read a screen worth and then click through to the next page, as Joseph spells out above.

Add to the mix the fact that we aren’t surviving by the number of page views/ad placements the only reason to paginate, in my opinion is for the feed readers (and those that come to the site that will skip over really long article sized posts).

That’s my defense, Your Honor! Looking forward to others getting involved in this Conversation!

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