Increasing Pageviews by Paginating Comments
There are a couple of different methods in use by sites to increase the amount of pageviews their readers achieve while reading their sites, but this is one of the first instances I have seen it done with comments. This entry at TVSquad shows how WIN is starting to incorporate pagination within their comments. I am not sure what other sites this is used on since I don’t read their sites (update way too often for my schedule).
Why would they do something like this?
The only two reasons I could come up with are that:
- They are trying to shrink the amount of scrolling a user must do, but that seems a bit too good-natured in this case considering the pagination starts after only 20 comments.
- The more comments on an entry, the more pageviews, the more money. Simple math.
Now I understand the want/need to squeeze more money from a site, but is this the right way to do it? I would love to get more pageviews on all my sites, but I am not sure I would do something like this unless I start to consistently get entries with comments topping 80, 90 or 100. At that point it becomes more of an issue of page size and scrolling than anything else.
Honestly, this is the one thing I hate about including ads on a site. For some people it drives them to new limits to think of ways to get more money out of their site. Maybe if you continue to write high-quality content you wouldn’t have to think of such ways and this is not a knock at WIN. I have grown more and more frustrated as of late from people looking to make money online. Not every subject will generate money and not every writing style will attract readers, but it seems more and more people feel as though they deserve to get paid for writing.
I don’t know, maybe I am a web hippy or something.
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POSTED IN: Web Tips
8 opinions for Increasing Pageviews by Paginating Comments
Steven Ametjan
Sep 14, 2005 at 5:39 pm
This is one thing that I am constantly fighting with marketers over. I’m in the middle of redesigning a site for the company I work for, and in going through the current version of the site, they have articles split over 4 pages just for the purpose of increasing the ad views… it’s so bad that the 4th page of the article is only one paragraph! And now, when they look at the design I’m currently working on, they want to throw more ads on the page, because that’s the only way they can think of making money. Heaven forbid they actually work and sell a sponsorship or something… Just makes me glad I never use the site.
Darren
Sep 14, 2005 at 10:29 pm
I’m not so sure its all about the money. I’ve added the capabaility to do it on one or two blogs partly just because a page with 100 comments on it can look pretty messy. It also impacts SEO as comments are included in what is indexed on a page.
Of course their motivation might be page views and cash - but it isnt the only reason they might have done it.
Michael Moncur
Sep 14, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Actually the math isn’t that simple. Many ad campaigns are based on unique visitors rather than raw pageviews, and per-click ads like AdSense have a diminishing return too–If I didn’t click on an ad on page one, chances are I won’t click on an ad on page three.
I’m not sure why they did that. Considering how busy WIN sites are, it might be simple bandwidth concerns.
(Disclaimer: I write for a WIN weblog, but I don’t speak for them.)
Jacob
Sep 15, 2005 at 11:13 am
A little off topic, but I love how Yahoo is displaying ads for Boxers :P
Sam Sugar
Sep 15, 2005 at 12:09 pm
It’s interesting to watch. I don’t run any ads right now and am redesigning my blogs to accommodate them - well aware the pageviews are newly important.
I think there’s a natural limitation that’ll take effect. When too many pageviews are needed to read an item - people will do what they do at Google and stop reading.
As for 100 comments - I think only the obsessed ever read that far (or am I just lazy). Past 20 comments and you’d be better off in a message-board (which has given me an idea for my redesign…)
Tom
Sep 15, 2005 at 8:29 pm
Why not let the user decide.
e.g. “Limit comments to (dropdown)”
Ben
Sep 20, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Yeah you’re a hippy.
Threadwatch: Yet another Sellout » A Jack of All Blogs
Nov 30, 2005 at 9:43 pm
[…] This comes just after Nick had a slight bit of anger problems with some of the Fine Fools staff. Huh sounds like Joyent/Textdrive all over again. […]
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