[transition]

They just got 20 times the amount of page views though. If they provided a list that means you could have skipped through and decreased their page views.

[dansingerman]

Really? I stopped at the second one and decided to read this thread instead (where the currently top voted comment is a pertinent summary)

[haribilalic]

That's still twice the page views that they would have received if it was all on one page.

[dansingerman]

But way less user engagement / time on site / likelihood of me coming back

[icefox]

A data point to back this up: after reading high quality articles presented in a good fashion I have actually typed in and gone to http://www.theatlantic.com/. This was a good article presented as if it was on aol.

[iisbum]

I wish people would stop worrying about page views, its a broken metric, always has been.

[mgkimsal]

It's not a broken metric when you're selling ad impressions on each page view. It's how you make money.

[iisbum]

i understand that's how ads are sold, but it does doesn't work.

the numbers are inaccurate, varying wildly depending on how you measure it (web server logs, analytics, etc), and its a horrible way for advertiser to measure ROI.

[mgkimsal]

i don't think it's horrible, it's just not the only way.

"display advertising" isn't going away. just because someone doesn't click on something (or otherwise 'engage') at the moment of viewing doesn't mean that it was wasted. People remember stuff, and often won't act until they see something 8-10 times.

Just because there are other ways of measuring doesn't mean that using 'impressions' to gauge ROI is 'horrible'.