Question

I’m creating a website that will feature articles listed down a page (with their content). Think of a blog style. However, I think having 50 articles fully displayed on one page will be a bit ridiculous, so I’m wondering what the best way to divide it into pages automatically would be.

I’m fetching the articles from a database using PHP and MySQL.

Answer 1

A couple suggestions that can be mixed and matched with other things.

1. Query for X number of articles. At the bottom of the page have a link to go to the next X number which queries for X number of articles starting after the last article displayed. Exact code would depends on how you organize things, but essentially just call X articles the content of 1 page and then give your dynamic page a value that gives it an offset to start from.
2. Especially nice if you have long articles, use some ajax or even just good ole fashioned javascript to “expand” articles. limit their display to just the first paragraph or so and then have a “read more” button that shows the rest of the article content. If it’s embedded in the page and hidden/shown with css and javascript it will still get indexed by search engines.
3. Probably better than the previous for SEO purposes. Put each article on it’s own page, and make your article list just display the first paragraph or so with a “read more” link to take you to the full article page. this is likely preferable because a) it’s easy (KISS is always a good method) b) it gives your site more unique pages without mixing keywords as much (good for SEO) c) the articles can be linked to directly and easily from other sites (good for SEO)

Just some thoughts. There’s never a “best” way to do anything, just ways that make more sense in context.