Google JUST SAYS NO to Overpagination.
September 19, 2011
Google says “HELL NAH, MULTI-PAGE” and promises to provide results for view-all over paginated articles.
From the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Therefore, to improve the user experience, when we detect that a content series also contains a single-page version (e.g. page-all.html), we’re now making a larger effort to return the single-page version in search results. If your site has a view-all option, there’s nothing you need to do; we’ll work to do it on your behalf. Also, indexing properties, like links, will be consolidated from the component pages in the series to the view-all page.
This is welcome news for those of us who hate unnecessary pagination of an article. It’s a nice touch that Google’s post includes best practices for making pagination more usable (instead of doing what I’d do, which is to say, “HEY GUYS, your 12-page, 10-image post on the top quarterbacks of all time AIN’T GONNA CUT IT ANYMORE, YO.”)
But what about the pageviews? IS ANYBODY THINKING ABOUT THE PAGEVIEWS?