Easily Distracted

As is often the case, when I find something, get myself sidetracked off of it for whatever reason. This is exactly what happened when I was going to post about an article that was sent to me. The article was on MSN Money Central, but I noticed that it said it was originally from the Christian Science Monitor. I didn't want to post to something that was just an exact reprint of something else (I don't mind posting to a blog or something because it at least adds some commentary), so I decide to get the link for the original. Once I got there, I found that they split the article onto two pages. This is not a long piece, by any means. There is no reason to break it up. This practice pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. I seem to be finding it more and more often while reading online. It seems like places are splitting things across multiple pages with no real justification (for the user, that is, I'll explain in a sec). I have seen lists of things posted where they stick each item on its own page. It isn't even done in a slide slow fashion, like Forbes will do, but rather just their full page is used. So I'll see something that has 5 pages, each one full of crap. Ah, and there is reasoning I said I'd explain. You see, when they break it apart across multiple pages, that means that their site is generating more hits. Every time you click the next page, it is another pageview. Not only does this inflate the numbers they'll show for their site, it inflates the numbers for ad views. When you make someone go through five pages, that is five times more views on the ads than would have otherwise been received. Personally, I think it is a horrible, despicable practice. All it does is aggravate the reader. Honestly, would anyone say that they'd prefer to have the content on multiple pages instead of one? I'm to the point now that if I see they've spread the piece out across multiple pages, I just stop reading it. The only exception is when it is actually a longer piece that is broken up to not be so daunting, or when the content is just really superb. What about you guys? Anyone else pissed off about this practice?



Oh, and for those of you curious, here is the article. I'm linking the MSN one for obvious reasons. I've lost all interest in wanting to talk about it, though.