6 ms·

>"Pagination persists because splitting a single-page article into two pages can, in theory, yield twice as many opportunities to display ads—though in practice

by djloche 14y ago

>"Pagination persists because splitting a single-page article into two pages can, in theory, yield twice as many opportunities to display ads—though in practice it doesn’t because lots of readers never bother to click past the first page." As much as I hate it and would love to think that pagination is just a publication pipedream, it's not. Some online publications have spent (and will spend if they're interested in making $) significant time and $ A/B testing various levels of pagination such that their sites are optimized so that there are just fewer pages than their readership is unwilling to tolerate. The end result is that their sites are optimized to make the most amount of money. If it didn't improve their revenues, they wouldn't be doing it. Of course, there are copycats that don't do the testing, don't optimize for their niche of readers, and are probably losing both money and readers because of it. We can argue about publications adopting different business models, but that's a different story. Advertisers pay a premium for engaged, targeted niche audiences that match their products/services. That's the reality of the online advertising market.

0r3jq4a0j 14y ago
If it didn't improve their revenues, they wouldn't be doing it. I can assure you that this is absolutely not the case. If you look at Plotz's comment, it's exactly what most editors will say: Pages that run too long can irritate readers. We run stories of 2,000, 4,000, even 6,000 words, and to run that much text down a single page can daunt and depress a reader. So pagination can make pages seem more welcoming, more chewable. They really believe this. It's important to realize that despite all the buzz about A/B testing in the industry, editors pretty universally believe they don't need to validate their opinions through testing. Why not? Because though school and their careers they've been told that their opinions matter, and, in fact, that's all their job really is: voicing opinions and making judgements, because they believe they have special insight into what readers want. Look no further than Poltz, a writer and editor with no software design or development experience, who somehow believes he's qualified to make that statement.
- joshuarrrr 14y ago
  I'll ignore your general disdain for writers and editors, and point out that not all readers want the same thing. I've pushed for non-paginated articles at my publication, but I admit that I'm not always happy with the result, and we do hear reader complaints about not being able to orient themselves in an article like this: http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmological-supercomputer http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmolog... (hopefully a wider content-well after an upcoming redesign will help) I'm curious to hear what people think of a hybrid pagination system, like that currently used by Computing Now magazine. I like that it gives the user a sense of the article length without interrupting the flow of reading. http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/careers/content?g=53319&type=article&urlTitle=transitioning-from-software-to-software-assurance http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/careers/cont...
  - 0r3jq4a0j 14y ago
    your general disdain for writers and editors It's completely justified. For example: show me where in Poltz's long career as a writer and editor that he secretly squeezed in the years of UX, design, and development experience that qualifies him to make a statement about designing user interfaces. The problem is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here or that it requires anything beyond their insight. I admit that I'm not always happy with the result ... http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmological-supercomputer http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmolog... This design doesn't incorporate many of the base standards for displaying long-form web content. Font size is way too small (should be 16-18px, 14px absolute minimum), column is too wide ("ideal" is 66 characters, though there's a wide range). A good starter article: http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/ http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/ There are many, many more. Until that page is completely redesigned and returned to a readable baseline, it's difficult to discuss or test anything.
    - joshuarrrr 14y ago
      Agree completely with font size and column-width critiques, both of which are addressed in an upcoming redesign. And, for that matter, I've always had issue with Slate's UX and design choices. >The fact is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here. I agree that UX and design are often neglected when traditional publishers work in digital mediums. But I find it odd that you can appreciate the experience that leads to good UX and design but not the editorial and reporting experience that leads to good copy.
- mcpie 14y ago
  Pagination can in fact increase reading time. Most readers never finish an article. In fact, most readers drop out after the second paragraph. Not because the articles are shit, but because people have a short attention span. By adding a 'next page' button, you create an incentive to keep reading. By spiking the curiosity of the reader to find out what's behind the bend, they linger instead of leaving.
krogsgard 14y ago
Pageviews only matter in, obviously, a pageview driven ad model. In other instances, like the author mentions with Buzzfeed, pure pageviews aren't the entire goal. If publishers can get advertisers more interested in unique visitors and (especially) length of time on the site, then pageviews could be less important, and terrible practices like Mashable-esque page-reload sliders and six page articles can start to go away.
- djloche 14y ago
  It's less pageviews and more reader engagement. You want to provide your salespeople solid evidence to convince the advertisers to pay the premium rate. While perhaps the last part of the deal is measured in ad impressions, all the other facts and figures are important: time on site, pages per unique visitor, where the site's traffic is coming from, etc.
  - jvm 14y ago
    I agree with what you're saying about pageviews as a metric for reader engagement, but it still seems like in an ideal world if the advertisers had a solid empirical measure of ad effectiveness rather than just a count of the impressions, then pagination would have no impact on ad revenues.
joshuarrrr 14y ago
>there are copycats that don't do the testing, don't optimize for their niche of readers, and are probably losing both money and readers because of it. I think this is much more common than sophisticated A/B testing. At our publication, we were able to make the business case that the added pageviews from pagination didn't make much of an impact on the bottom-line. Because we generally run out of premium ad inventory each month anyway, most of the extra impressions were just for extremely low-revenue, Google-served remnant ads. Again, some publications thrive on volume, but it's a tough way to make money as CTR on Google ads is very low. >If it didn't improve their revenues, they wouldn't be doing it. The publishing industry has not always been about maximizing profits. The weird hybrid of advertising and reader-supported has created a different mentality in the business. There are plenty of things that publishers still do- like supporting foreign correspondents- that are driven more by the editorial side of than the business side.
- xymostech 14y ago
  Does this mean that your publication, you decided not to go for pagination?
  - joshuarrrr 14y ago
    That's right-it will be fully implemented in an upcoming redesign, but we've already shifted our production and design process to a non-paginated model. Usually when our articles were posted on Slashdot, Reddit, or here, readers used the single-page URL anyway. So the number of pageviews past page two was almost negligible.
franze 14y ago
the A/B test of one of my clients (in the b2c vertical) showed (for their site with their users) that people clicked more pages (which was kinda expected), and stayed longer on the website overall - with pagination (instead of endless scrolling).
- duopixel 14y ago
  Wouldn't it be possible that the time lost paginating accounts for the longer stay?
  - franze 14y ago
    some other metrics (we call them "item views") went up as well. but it must be said: users of that site special, they actually want to find something, so they are (mostly) not casual users. i remember a case a few years back on a travel site where we had a different experience, time on site went up after we ditched pagination (but that site also had horrible page load time, so every page view was a great opportunity to leave the site, so well, it's all interconnected)
- 0r3jq4a0j 14y ago
  Paginating lists or paginating arbitrarily within long text content? There is a massive difference between the two.
ollysb 14y ago
What's the difference between showing adverts on the next page or adverts further down the same page? They could continue all the way to the bottom of the page. Not that I want to see this but it would be an improvement on paged articles.
- malsme 14y ago
  The comment higher up says A/B testing is used, that may be true for publishers that make use of performance ads. If you're a well known entity then you try to only accept brand ads (CPM - pay per impression/view), and those brand ads come with lots of conditions. Advertisers want to appear near the top of the page or near the top of the content - that's why ad networks have rules about the placement of ads. Even Google (which is more performance than brand) limits the number of units that are displayed on a single page. If your ads are at the top then there's a good chance that they will appear on the user's screen. If your ads are at the bottom and the user found the article boring then the browser was closed before seeing the ad, yet the impression was still paid for (hence, much lower rates).
  - ollysb 14y ago
    This is the same with paged content, the user is equally less likely to see the adverts because maybe they don't view that page/scroll down that far. I'm guessing the issue is that if you use paged content you know that the user has looked at that part of the article. If the adverts are all on the same page then an impression is not proof that a user has had that advert appear on the screen. Having said that if bootstrap's scrollspy can detect when you've scrolled content into view then I don't see why you shouldn't be able to track advert views in the same way.
    - jonnathanson 14y ago
      Paged content gives site owners (most often, content farms) the ability to divide what would be a 10-second read into a 2-minute read by way of forcing users to keep clicking through. This can artificially juke pageview metrics, "engagement" metrics, bounce rates, etc., which means the site can a) sell more ads, b) command a higher premium on ads, or c) both. Typically, it makes for a horrific reading experience. And I believe it will become bad for business, too, if enough high-quality content sites emerge and offer a far more compelling experience to draw readers away. There's a hurdle preventing that from happening, however, and the hurdle is that users seem fairly site-agnostic in their content preferences. They consume information without a great deal of thought as to where it came from. And it's easier than ever to receive content now, through social channels, and never even have an inkling as to its original source or site. This liquidity and disposability of content means that content farms still have a big advantage over sites that attempt to make themselves into interesting, repeat-visit destinations. Now, savvier and more intelligent readers -- the kind who probably frequent this community -- tend to avoid content farms, and probably don't click on articles entitled "10 Totally Weird Diet Tricks That Will Burn Away 10 Lbs in One Day!!!," requiring a 10-page click through to read. But sadly, a lot of people do click those things. A lot.
gizzlon 14y ago
Well, it's optimized to make the amount of money short term. This kind of testing doesn't tell you what the reader thinks of your site, which is kind-of the OP point. The user might click through to all the pages, but obtain a general disdain for your site. Not saying that pagination enough to make users hate a site, but for me, personally, it doesn't exactly help.
- incision 14y ago
  Good point. If I'm simply tolerating some aspect of a site, it means that as soon as an alternate source of or means for accessing the for the same content shows up - I'll leave and never look back.
- coliveira 14y ago
  I hate split articles too, but I believe this way of thinking is common mostly among tech-savvy people. People that don't know technology don't get annoyed by it or, if they do, just assume that this is how the technology works. Since online news are created for the vast majority of readers that are not part of our demographics, they will make more money by just splitting the articles anyway.

by djloche 14y ago

0r3jq4a0j 14y ago

If it didn't improve their revenues, they wouldn't be doing it. I can assure you that this is absolutely not the case. If you look at Plotz's comment, it's exactly what most editors will say: Pages that run too long can irritate readers. We run stories of 2,000, 4,000, even 6,000 words, and to run that much text down a single page can daunt and depress a reader. So pagination can make pages seem more welcoming, more chewable. They really believe this. It's important to realize that despite all the buzz about A/B testing in the industry, editors pretty universally believe they don't need to validate their opinions through testing. Why not? Because though school and their careers they've been told that their opinions matter, and, in fact, that's all their job really is: voicing opinions and making judgements, because they believe they have special insight into what readers want. Look no further than Poltz, a writer and editor with no software design or development experience, who somehow believes he's qualified to make that statement.

joshuarrrr 14y ago
I'll ignore your general disdain for writers and editors, and point out that not all readers want the same thing. I've pushed for non-paginated articles at my publication, but I admit that I'm not always happy with the result, and we do hear reader complaints about not being able to orient themselves in an article like this: http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmological-supercomputer http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmolog... (hopefully a wider content-well after an upcoming redesign will help) I'm curious to hear what people think of a hybrid pagination system, like that currently used by Computing Now magazine. I like that it gives the user a sense of the article length without interrupting the flow of reading. http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/careers/content?g=53319&type=article&urlTitle=transitioning-from-software-to-software-assurance http://www.computer.org/portal/web/computingnow/careers/cont...
- 0r3jq4a0j 14y ago
  your general disdain for writers and editors It's completely justified. For example: show me where in Poltz's long career as a writer and editor that he secretly squeezed in the years of UX, design, and development experience that qualifies him to make a statement about designing user interfaces. The problem is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here or that it requires anything beyond their insight. I admit that I'm not always happy with the result ... http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmological-supercomputer http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/the-cosmolog... This design doesn't incorporate many of the base standards for displaying long-form web content. Font size is way too small (should be 16-18px, 14px absolute minimum), column is too wide ("ideal" is 66 characters, though there's a wide range). A good starter article: http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/ http://informationarchitects.net/blog/100e2r/ There are many, many more. Until that page is completely redesigned and returned to a readable baseline, it's difficult to discuss or test anything.
  - joshuarrrr 14y ago
    Agree completely with font size and column-width critiques, both of which are addressed in an upcoming redesign. And, for that matter, I've always had issue with Slate's UX and design choices. >The fact is that editors simply don't believe there is special expertise here. I agree that UX and design are often neglected when traditional publishers work in digital mediums. But I find it odd that you can appreciate the experience that leads to good UX and design but not the editorial and reporting experience that leads to good copy.
mcpie 14y ago
Pagination can in fact increase reading time. Most readers never finish an article. In fact, most readers drop out after the second paragraph. Not because the articles are shit, but because people have a short attention span. By adding a 'next page' button, you create an incentive to keep reading. By spiking the curiosity of the reader to find out what's behind the bend, they linger instead of leaving.

krogsgard 14y ago

Pageviews only matter in, obviously, a pageview driven ad model. In other instances, like the author mentions with Buzzfeed, pure pageviews aren't the entire goal. If publishers can get advertisers more interested in unique visitors and (especially) length of time on the site, then pageviews could be less important, and terrible practices like Mashable-esque page-reload sliders and six page articles can start to go away.

djloche 14y ago
It's less pageviews and more reader engagement. You want to provide your salespeople solid evidence to convince the advertisers to pay the premium rate. While perhaps the last part of the deal is measured in ad impressions, all the other facts and figures are important: time on site, pages per unique visitor, where the site's traffic is coming from, etc.
- jvm 14y ago
  I agree with what you're saying about pageviews as a metric for reader engagement, but it still seems like in an ideal world if the advertisers had a solid empirical measure of ad effectiveness rather than just a count of the impressions, then pagination would have no impact on ad revenues.

joshuarrrr 14y ago

>there are copycats that don't do the testing, don't optimize for their niche of readers, and are probably losing both money and readers because of it. I think this is much more common than sophisticated A/B testing. At our publication, we were able to make the business case that the added pageviews from pagination didn't make much of an impact on the bottom-line. Because we generally run out of premium ad inventory each month anyway, most of the extra impressions were just for extremely low-revenue, Google-served remnant ads. Again, some publications thrive on volume, but it's a tough way to make money as CTR on Google ads is very low. >If it didn't improve their revenues, they wouldn't be doing it. The publishing industry has not always been about maximizing profits. The weird hybrid of advertising and reader-supported has created a different mentality in the business. There are plenty of things that publishers still do- like supporting foreign correspondents- that are driven more by the editorial side of than the business side.

xymostech 14y ago
Does this mean that your publication, you decided not to go for pagination?
- joshuarrrr 14y ago
  That's right-it will be fully implemented in an upcoming redesign, but we've already shifted our production and design process to a non-paginated model. Usually when our articles were posted on Slashdot, Reddit, or here, readers used the single-page URL anyway. So the number of pageviews past page two was almost negligible.

franze 14y ago

the A/B test of one of my clients (in the b2c vertical) showed (for their site with their users) that people clicked more pages (which was kinda expected), and stayed longer on the website overall - with pagination (instead of endless scrolling).

duopixel 14y ago
Wouldn't it be possible that the time lost paginating accounts for the longer stay?
- franze 14y ago
  some other metrics (we call them "item views") went up as well. but it must be said: users of that site special, they actually want to find something, so they are (mostly) not casual users. i remember a case a few years back on a travel site where we had a different experience, time on site went up after we ditched pagination (but that site also had horrible page load time, so every page view was a great opportunity to leave the site, so well, it's all interconnected)
0r3jq4a0j 14y ago
Paginating lists or paginating arbitrarily within long text content? There is a massive difference between the two.

ollysb 14y ago

What's the difference between showing adverts on the next page or adverts further down the same page? They could continue all the way to the bottom of the page. Not that I want to see this but it would be an improvement on paged articles.

malsme 14y ago
The comment higher up says A/B testing is used, that may be true for publishers that make use of performance ads. If you're a well known entity then you try to only accept brand ads (CPM - pay per impression/view), and those brand ads come with lots of conditions. Advertisers want to appear near the top of the page or near the top of the content - that's why ad networks have rules about the placement of ads. Even Google (which is more performance than brand) limits the number of units that are displayed on a single page. If your ads are at the top then there's a good chance that they will appear on the user's screen. If your ads are at the bottom and the user found the article boring then the browser was closed before seeing the ad, yet the impression was still paid for (hence, much lower rates).
- ollysb 14y ago
  This is the same with paged content, the user is equally less likely to see the adverts because maybe they don't view that page/scroll down that far. I'm guessing the issue is that if you use paged content you know that the user has looked at that part of the article. If the adverts are all on the same page then an impression is not proof that a user has had that advert appear on the screen. Having said that if bootstrap's scrollspy can detect when you've scrolled content into view then I don't see why you shouldn't be able to track advert views in the same way.
  - jonnathanson 14y ago
    Paged content gives site owners (most often, content farms) the ability to divide what would be a 10-second read into a 2-minute read by way of forcing users to keep clicking through. This can artificially juke pageview metrics, "engagement" metrics, bounce rates, etc., which means the site can a) sell more ads, b) command a higher premium on ads, or c) both. Typically, it makes for a horrific reading experience. And I believe it will become bad for business, too, if enough high-quality content sites emerge and offer a far more compelling experience to draw readers away. There's a hurdle preventing that from happening, however, and the hurdle is that users seem fairly site-agnostic in their content preferences. They consume information without a great deal of thought as to where it came from. And it's easier than ever to receive content now, through social channels, and never even have an inkling as to its original source or site. This liquidity and disposability of content means that content farms still have a big advantage over sites that attempt to make themselves into interesting, repeat-visit destinations. Now, savvier and more intelligent readers -- the kind who probably frequent this community -- tend to avoid content farms, and probably don't click on articles entitled "10 Totally Weird Diet Tricks That Will Burn Away 10 Lbs in One Day!!!," requiring a 10-page click through to read. But sadly, a lot of people do click those things. A lot.

gizzlon 14y ago

Well, it's optimized to make the amount of money short term. This kind of testing doesn't tell you what the reader thinks of your site, which is kind-of the OP point. The user might click through to all the pages, but obtain a general disdain for your site. Not saying that pagination enough to make users hate a site, but for me, personally, it doesn't exactly help.

incision 14y ago
Good point. If I'm simply tolerating some aspect of a site, it means that as soon as an alternate source of or means for accessing the for the same content shows up - I'll leave and never look back.
coliveira 14y ago
I hate split articles too, but I believe this way of thinking is common mostly among tech-savvy people. People that don't know technology don't get annoyed by it or, if they do, just assume that this is how the technology works. Since online news are created for the vast majority of readers that are not part of our demographics, they will make more money by just splitting the articles anyway.