Long pages or accordion for content?

Question

I'm looking at how best to display content for my website. I plan to have a large number of pages of products, which will contain a large amount of information (ideally, the amount of information on each page will expand over time, as reviews are collected etc).

I've discounted separate pages for different bits of product information (for example: photos and reviews) and would like to keep everything on-page. So I'm considering two options:

1. Long pages of content (for example: Amazon's product pages)
2. Pages using accordion tabs (for example: photos, reviews, and descriptions) displayed under separate tabs, but all on the same page)

I want to base my decision on best experience and where possible, evidence that one is more suitable for e-commerce than the other. That is, in terms of user experience and goal conversion performance.

At the moment, I'm inclined towards the long product page because

1. Amazon's experience of it seems to work well for them.
2. There are potentially fewer rendering issues across different devices and platforms.

What evidence or data is available to help guide my decision and to rule out one over the other?

Answer 1

SEO

For SEO, which actually might be quite important for online shopping, I would go for the long page. Hidden content is not referenced by search engines. Thus, some data might not be indexed.

The safe solution would be a long page.

Accesibility

Content has to be accessible. Tabs are not the solution.

Answer 2

It's an interesting question and there are two sides to this.

On one hand, Amazon, like any other giant, can get away with things that smaller websites can't. For example, if Amazon were to build a bad backlink profile with 10,000 links, they wouldn't lose their position. But if a smaller website were to do the same, they would fall in rankings. Similarly, if Amazon had a million products with descriptions that were only one character long (i.e., low-quality pages), I'm 90% sure those pages would still end up in the top results, while your site would likely get penalized.

I'm leading up to the point that blindly emulating the structure of a site without evaluating other variables can be a mistake.

In your case, it's best to start with one page, as this will allow you to make each page high-quality and useful for people, which will help them rank better. Later on, if there's enough content, you can divide it into separate pages for reviews, specifications, and anything else you want, as long as you make sure there's enough quality content to make each page valuable.

Many online stores started with a single product page, like Amazon, but after accumulating enough content, they divided it into separate pages, as the intent behind the query doesn't always fully match what's on the one page. Also, the keyword intent can be ambiguous and diluted on the page.

In conclusion, for now, it's best to start with one page and then see how it goes before making any further decisions.