I was under the impression that bounce rate is a ratio of the number of pages a user views on a particular site. If there is only a single page then the bounce rate will always be 100%
Yes, see the [U]Wikipedia definition[/U].
So the BR doesn’t say much about the willingness of the visitor to click on the “inside pages”/tabs/calls to action in a 1 page site.
- But I’ve some things about the topic in general.
The points in the “[U]One Page Websites and Templates: Three Reasons Why I Absolutely Hate This Design Trend[/U]” article are (5, not 3!):
- One Page Websites Can Derail SEO Efforts
- One Page Websites Can Confuse Users
- Website Owners Are Reliant on Coders
- You Are Not GM and You Are Not Selling Cadillacs in Morocco
- Know Who You Are and What You Need
I should add a number 6:
- 6. One Page Websites Can Be Not Accessible and Not User Friendly.
While accessibility for a normal multi-page website is not too difficult, for a heavy scripted 1-pager it can be extremely complicated to make it accessible for all visitors. Apart from that: a one page site has the risk of a big file size for all parts together, slowing down the performance.
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PicnicTutorial: Here is how I did a one page site [U]edit-your-website[/U] with jquery tabs.
HAWK: For instance I think this one [U]onetreegrill.co.nz[/U] looks quite good but it’s an example of one that I reckon should be a multi-pager.
molona: That’s a nice one. I’m not that sure that should be a multipager… except for a bit of text, it is kind of empty.
Let I compare these 2 one-pagers.
edit-your-website
- (Derail SEO Efforts)
In this case no problem: the site is made script-independent (unobtrusive javascript), everything can be indexed. In case of <noscript> the <iframe> fancyboxes for Testimonials, Contact and Login are leading to indexable separate pages; it’s not 100% a 1-pager.
There is no to much content, and no keywords competition in priority. - (Confuse Users)
Not in this case: the 1-page is mimicking a multi-page site, everything is clear. No long page, no long scrollbar: the other “pages” are invisible. The transitions are giving no movements or jumping jacks, but smooth faders: good for the eye. - (Reliant on Coders)
In this case no problem: you are the coder as well as the client. - (You Are Not GM)
In the cited [U]november 2012 article of smashingmagazine[/U] is pointed to the Cadillac 1-page site [URL=“http://ats-vs-world.cadillac.com/#!/home”][U]ats-vs-world.cadillac.com/#!/home[/U]. - I note that in the meantime Cadillac has left the 1-pager, and the site is redirected to the multi-pager [URL=“http://www.cadillac.com/ats-luxury-sport-sedan.html#!/home”][U]cadillac.com/ats-luxury-sport-sedan.html#!/home[/U]. - “No comment!”
- (Know Who You Are)
In my opinion the “focus on what really matters to you and your website visitor” adage is good translated. - (Accessibility)
The page is good readable in a text only browser (though the menu-items and the video’s don’t work, and there are some problems with the forms).
User Friendliness: easy to navigate. Small page size: Chrome Webdeveloper tool says 268 KB all-in. Fast loading.
My general conclusion: the mentioned 1-page dangers in the article are for 99% avoided, well done! 
onetreegrill
- (Derail SEO Efforts)
The site is script-dependent and no food for SEO. All items in the Menu/Cuisine tab are invisible if javascript is disabled, and also invisible for Google. So a Google on for instance “Venison restaurant in Auckland” can not point to the One Page Tree Grill website, for the “Wild venison tenderloin” (one of the Entrées) is in an AJAX part, due to the 1-page construction. In this way, lots of search words go lost.
On the other hand, there are links to 4 pdf’s with the menu’s. Google can read pdf’s. But these pdf’s aren’t SEO-optimized: the “One Tree Grill Restaurant” header is not text but an image, and nowhere else mentioned as text in the (MS Word to pdf) document. The pdf-filenames (=titles in the browser bar & browser tab) doen’t say anything; no address of the restaurant or other important SEO-info, etc. - Besides, if Google finds the Venison in the pdf, the link in the Google search results goes to the pdf only, and not to the site itself. For me: if I have the choice between a restaurant in a pdf-result and a restaurant in a site-link, I take the last. - Anyway an inviting direct link in the pdf to the site is needed; but it’s an extra click for the visitor (and extra clicks are losing visitors). And the pdf must have an attractive design before I go on (here: not, a pure text list without images).
BTW: The direct neighbor of One Tree Grill is also a restaurant with a site: a [U]multi-page site[/U]. More old-fashioned, with a simple dropdown menu; they don’t have all these SEO difficulties. - (Confuse Users)
Yes, heavy. Opening the site, I get a huge slider of almost the whole screen size, and no textual information.
I see captions at the slider, and think “that must be parts/pages of the site, displayed in the slider, which I will see as clicking trough the menu”. So in general I don’t click them. But now I’m checking the site, and I clicked. Brr, it are no captions but … a slider inside the slider!!! - I take the “One Tree Grill Video: Take a quick look around One Tree Grill”. First thing to see: “Sorry. This video does not exist”. :x
Then I went to the small triangle under the main slider, and I’m sliding (vertical slider this time) to the “CUISINE” part. The submenu’s at the left hand are clear.
After reading enough, my eye is attracted to the right scrollbar. So there is more on the page > I scroll down and see what the rest is.
Now I’m curious about the top menu. Ah, well known stuff: no other pages, but auto-scrolling down again (I don’t need to see what is between “page” I was and the “page” I want!). And: not only the desired “page” is visible (also the scrollbar and all other content, as mentioned).
BTW: The word “Menu” in the top menu is 2 times confusing. (1) It is not a menu as webpage menu, but a link to the restaurant menu. It should read at least “Menu’s”. (2) The “Menu” link is going to the item with “Cuisine” as title.
BTW-2: Everything here is called a “menu”: the “whisky Menu” (DESSERT MENU > LIQUID DESSERTS > WHISKY > “WHISKY MENU”) consists of 15 brands, I should be a bit dizzy after this menu. (: - (Reliant on Coders)
I’m afraid: yes. If I see the source code, I can make a mistake, but it doesn’t look as CMS but as a tailored unique model. Then the restaurant has to go back to the coder for every small change in the (restaurant) menu or something else. - (You Are Not GM)
See above. - (Know Who You Are)
The “focus on what really matters to you and your website visitor.” adage. Mmm, I wonder whether visitors are waiting for a visual experience as this site. Maybe the restaurant owner is happy with the 1-page design, but I think the visitor has more benefit from a straight forward multi-page website (“What, Where, When”).
The luxurious attractiveness of the restaurant (I suppose that is the desired image) can be given as well in a multi-page site. - (Accessibility)
Scriptless: the topmenu doesn’t work. The Cuisine is empty.
Text only (CSS disabled): if javascript enabled, the topmenu is clickable, but the items are not visual indicated as clickable links. Big amount of unordered lists of dozens items, without any “skip list” possibility.
User Friendliness: the points under (2), and too much slider-movement when opening the site; no possibility to control the slider speed or to stop the slider. The same for the marquee’s in the “caption” slider.
File size: there has to be downloaded 4.9MB (!). Online [U]Web Page Speed Report[/U] of websiteoptimization: “No Report. The size of this web page (3083972 bytes) has exceeded the maximum size of 3000000 bytes”, no wonder. A lot of very big images (good for a minimal distance of 2.5m from the screen
), also big in filesize. Everybody has a fast internet connection? 
BTW: 3 images of the big slider (the chic glass, the wooden wine cabinet and the dish with a delicacy) are not of the restaurant itself, but shutterstock images.
My general conclusion: here the mentioned 1-page dangers in the article are for 99% true.
I agree that it could be better a multi-pager, and disagree with "looks quite good " and “That’s a nice one”. It is quite trendy (for the trend loving insiders in webdesign), but that will not be the target group of the site. I guess the most website visitors (potential restaurant visitors) are not so happy, because of the lack of user friendliness. If they can find the site with Google!
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Back to molona’s main question:
What about you? do you love them, hate them or think (like myself) that sometimes it is suitable to use a one page website?
- I don’t see the benefits of a one page site. For instance I see no visual difference in an one page site with a constant header/menu and a more page site with the same header/menu. The surplus in loading time for a multi-pager is neglectable: a header image is already cached, and re-rendering of html/css is done in a fraction of a millisec.
- If I can see it is a 1-pager design (with all the scrolling stuff and so), I hate it.
- If I cannot see it is a 1-pager, it depends. But the “sometimes it is suitable” is for me “almost never”.
Francky
Notes @PicnicTutorial:
- It seems the edit-your-website.com domain (in <title>, footer and hidden h1) doesn’t exist.
- At arrival, a click on the Video-icon is doing nothing. Maybe you can give it a title “Home/Video”, and give it only the animation and click possibility if one of the other “pages” is viewed (and then the animation/click of the other “page” icon can be stopped).
- The page has [U]The Jumping Page[/U] disease.
- As you ask for confidential data (email address, password; FTP Address, Web Host Username, Web Host Password), I think the page has to be a secured https-page; also the Contact and Login page.
Actually, articles that spread into many pages or tutorials where you need to click on the next button all the time to see further steps are done on purpose. The webmasters want you to click as many times as possible to increase their stats.
Sure, among the multipagers is also chaff and wheat.
(Once I made a kind of tutorial with 80 pages, so 79 clicks to “next”. Purposes: not to much steps on 1 page, and 1 page not more content as 2 times screen height at 1024*780px for easy reading.)
It works better if you first clearly articulate the notions involved.
“One page websites” as new trend (and wrong terminology) describes AJAX heavy client-side centric websites, where the content is loaded while the user is “staying” on the same address: www.example.com. This type of content delivery Rebecca Gill is against, and for a good reason, since this type of mechanism describes the real new trend: SPAs, and not “one page websites”. A different kind of animal.
Classic websites, where the owner of the website is very concise, where it uses JavaScript just to enhance the UX, not to actively cycle 100 pages worth of content in one page, where the bulk functionality is not downloaded over to the client from the server-side, these are not hurting SEO, they are a natural solution for little, small one webpage content. I mean, what would you do? That’s all there is. Nobody’s gonna blame you, and certainly not SEO-penalize your small content.
If there is not a big issue for one page website. How it will looks or comfortable for users is depends upon its designing. It can be look smart and cool if every content and pictures are fetch perfectly and if many of info and content are there it will look ugly.
According to SEO point of view google gives preference to those websites who have more pages and content.
After what you said I want to actually show you the one big reason why it’s a big issue of having a one page website. Imagine someone visits your website, reads the 1st page and leaves. Well, there are only 3 steps involved in the process. Visit - Read - Exit. As there is no other pages there is also nothing that can attract the visitor to come back to that website. Well, it’s actually ok if the visitor searches for some plumber’s number as after visiting your website he can find the number and info about what you do quickly, but what would happen if you had some more content on your website that is related to plumbing, eg. news, events, portfolio, blog, etc. The potential of having a multi-page website is great, isn’t it? It’s all about creating a better & more professional image of your company & show people that you care…
Well, that’s not a one page website although I do take in your comment about making it appealing
Guess what the next “Talk with the experts” is about?