Single page websites

[zeb]

A quick bit of background:
I've been trading as Zebra Graphic Design for many years but now want to move away from that and just use my own name. I've registered marywright.co.uk and have only recently put anything into it.

So, what I'd like to ask is this; what do you think of single-page portfolio websites? Until a few months ago, my Zebra site was a single page, but it had a good Google page rank and always appeared at/near the top of page 1 in Google searches using relevant search terms.

Then a while ago I asked for opinions on it in another forum and was quite surprised by the (mostly American) fairly hostile response. Replies along the lines of "If I'm only interested in website design, why should I have to scroll to the foot of the page? Isn't my custom important to you?" were typical. A fair enough point, but no need to feel so affronted, surely?

As a result, I changed Zebra to a multi page site and marywright.co.uk is identical in terms of content, but just a single page. My thinking is that when I've sorted out the name change completely, I need to concentrate more on marywright but keep Zebra going too, at least for a while. The name style is a temporary measure until I can find the time to come up with something better.

I'm not looking for a site critique, I'd just like to know if anyone else has a single page site, or opinions on them. Sorry for the ramble!

Thanks,
Mary

[Boss Hog]

I think single page websites can...

1) Become faaaaar too long

2) The page load times can be affected in time due to the amount of images/photos/content added etc etc

Not a fan personally.

[matobo]

If you keep the zebra graphic design url, you should be able to redirect its traffic automatically to your new one, so essentially you shouldn't lose any incoming business.

I think it is a personal opinion, but also not a fan of single page sites, especially for portfolios. I like being albe to click in and explore what I want to explore.

[dan-marsh]

I'd be inclined to put one link to the new site, plus your logo, on the old site, with a message saying "we moved to... yada yada.".

Monitor the taffic, and when the old site is no longer seeing much traffic, kill it completely.

As it is now, it is a bit confusing.

[zeb]

Thanks for the replies.

I've changed the single-page site so it's identical to the other one. Confusing for now, I know, but I'll be busy changing all the links to Zebra so that they point to Marywright instead. I'll monitor the traffic and when the time is right the Zebra site will simply redirect to MW. I can't afford to bin the Zebra domain entirely because some websites which I've designed but no longer control/update will continue to to have the Zebra link. These are the ones which Google recognises as backlinks to my site, affecting my page rank etc.

You never know, I may come up with an entirely different use for Zebra one day.

[mark165]

my website is a single page portfolio:

New Portfolio Website

I'm contemplating making it a multi-page website, mainly for SEO resons, and a few people have said they dont like single page sites, however many people said they like it being a single page. I think it's all personal preference really!

[kithappens]

I would nearly always recommend multiple page sites, firstly to organise the information in an appropriate and easy to navigate way, but secondly to help with SEO as larger sites tend to perform better in search engines.