Single page website vs Google

[LeszekNowakowski]

Hi,

I was wondering on this issue:

There is a website for guesthouse. It has all information on one page (it is a valid page, with legitimate content). How google treats those pages? Would it treat it as Doorway Page? Or give some other penalties?

What about a bounce rate? Because it will be pretty high, as there is no option to go somewhere else?

What is your opinion on single page websites - SEO wise? Is it a shot in the foot?

Thanks!

[LoganRay]

No problem, glad to help!

[LeszekNowakowski]

Thanks Logan, appreciate both answers!

[LoganRay]

I should've mentioned this at first, but single-page sites are (generally speaking) much less likely to gain quality links since they don't have much content. Giving your site some link-worth content is a good way to win the battle between your site and another similar single-page site.

[LeszekNowakowski]

Hi Logan,

thank you very much for your reply

How about a page that is build for Guesthouse: there is not much info besides About, Location, Rooms and booking.

And lets stack it against other guesthouse, that has very similar content but About, Location, Rooms, Contact us is each a different page.

Would google prefer the one that has more pages (as the bounce rate would be probably lower) ?

[LoganRay]

Hi Leszek,

Single page websites don't do very well in search results. The primary reason for this is that there's too many topics discussed on one page. It's important to be able to optimize different pages for different topics. For example, a site that reviews running shoes could have a page optimized for different brands of running shoes, or different styles (trail running, road running, minimalist running shoes, etc..). If this site was a single-page site, you'd be diluting all those topics by putting them on one page.

There are cases where a single-page site can be used without hurting SEO efforts, but since most sites target a number of different topics, it's rare to see.