How many posts should be in the showtread for best seo ?

Hi,
Question is clear. I see a lot of forums, they put 10 posts in the tread. But I know for google if your page has a big content, it affects your keyword quality.It also affects your adsense spiders too.

Someone says that it must be minumum 20 posts in the tread, someone says that 30 is ok.

I am confused.

Thanks

On my sites i prefer 15 posts per page. Adding over 25 posts will increase page size which is disadvantage on seo side also. Thats why 15-20 posts is a good range imo.

That time 20 is suitable for seo and other stuff ?
Any different ideas, seo guru ?
Thanks

The more you have, the less overall paginated thread display pages you have (pages 2+).

• If you have 20 posts in a thread, and break it up by 10 posts per page, you have 2 pages.
• If you have the same 20 posts in a thread, and break it up by 20 posts per thread, you have 1 page. Link value is stored by 1 page entirely, instead of shared by 2.

There is certainly value in reducing the # of pages that you are submitting to the index (given a content set of fixed size).

Page one will receive the most link value and should have a slight advantage in ranking for keywords contained on the page, versus page 2+.

The content of the first post would probably tend to reflect the title of the thread better as well, making page 1 a little more likely to rank for terms related to keyword variations of the thread title.

Another decision would be related to the niche. Imagine comparing a random chat forum versus a short story writers forum.

The chat forum would have largely short entries with lower value, less targeted, keywords included in the posts on average. For this type of forum, you would like want to keep the # of posts per page higher, to reduce the low value pages (2+) count, and to condense more keywords onto the same page, hoping for combinations that may rank.

The writers forum would have more long entries with richer keywords. Since the length of the average post is longer and more keyword rich, it's possible that this forum could do well even if the # of posts per page is kept smaller.

The key thing to keep in mind (besides usability decisions for your end user) is the more pages you have (for the same content set), the lower the average link value or (PageRank, if you desire) that is shared for each page. More pages, causes an algorithmic reduction in each page's ability to rank (versus less pages).

This is also why, one of my key recommendations is to decide whether or not to include showpost pages on your site. If they are not bearing significant traffic, they can be dramatically reducing the efficiency/effectiveness of your SEO efforts.
Do your ShowPost Pages Get Search Hits? - vBulletin SEO Forums

Joe Ward thanks. But it is a little complicated for me to understand. My forum is about pc. And there is always short entries. Only first post of the tread is long, others not.

I already disabled showpost pages in the sitemap a long time ago. So, can you give me a certain number to break it up in the tread ? I was using 10 posts in the tread (default). Now I am thinking about 20. How is that ?

Thanks a lot.

I think 20 is a reasonable choice for you.

Thanks