Pagination and SEO - Share your experience

[TheBigK]

I've always wondered if pagination has any effect on the overall SEO. In the past, I've experimented with having 10 or 20 posts per page (more content on any page) and had different results. I found out that having 20 posts per page would drive more traffic over the period of time; because Google would find lot of unique content on any page.

But I'd not draw any conclusion because there are several other factors that determine the overall rank of any page.

So the question is: What's more preferred by the search engines?

• A lengthy thread with over 2000 words on one page OR
• The same content divided over 5 pages?

Which one do you think would get more love from Google?

 

[Pavle123]

Great question. I would love to hear what others think.

The only think about pagination that might come in handy is this official google video

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And this link as well https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663744?hl=en

 

[TheBigK]

Umm, I've seen Google videos; but I think everyone here agrees that theory and practicals don't sync. I'd trust experience of others more than what Google says in their videos.

 

[rdn]

Google Search Result alone paginate the page with every 10 results per page

 

[Carlos]

Umm, I've seen Google videos; but I think everyone here agrees that theory and practicals don't sync. I'd trust experience of others more than what Google says in their videos.

That - Exactly!

 

[TheBigK]

Google Search Result alone paginate the page with every 10 results per page

...yep. But no one searches for Google Page Results

 

[melbo]

Will changing pagination on an established forum/thread break links?

 

[Xon]

XF permalinks aren't.

 

[Mouth]

I think user experience is more important than SEO, for this.
Too many posts per page and your page load time goes up, affecting user experience and load time rankings.
I think 20 is the 'sweet spot' for user experience.

 

[jauburn]

I would like each user to be able to select the number of posts that he or she sees per "page," the way it used to be in vbulletin (or make it better, even). Some people are rightly annoyed (and some in pain) by or because of constant clicking or tapping. I'd let them see 100 posts per page if they wanted.

 

[dethfire]

Google ranks anything past page 1 poorly. Page size for loading also needs to be taken into account

 

[melbo]

So we're yes/no here

We had always thought that less posts per page (10) would lead to more ad impressions although we tend to prefer user experience over SEO as @Mouth mentioned. I'm up for trying to move from 10 to 20 but wonder if that will break things in link/search. It was mentioned @Xon that 'xf permalinks aren't' but this doesn't help me understand why or if this would be bad to make this change now on an established forum.

 

[Xon]

So we're yes/no here

We had always thought that less posts per page (10) would lead to more ad impressions although we tend to prefer user experience over SEO as @Mouth mentioned. I'm up for trying to move from 10 to 20 but wonder if that will break things in link/search. It was mentioned @Xon that 'xf permalinks aren't' but this doesn't help me understand why or if this would be bad to make this change now on an established forum.

The permalink XF generates for your post is:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/pagination-and-seo-share-your-experience.91290/#post-886315

However, if your post moves thread or page, the link breaks. is it lands on the old page/thread and XF ignore the 'post-886315' bit in the URL when figuring out if it needs to redirect you somewhere.

 

[melbo]

Thank you.