Less common perhaps, but also annoying, are the sites whose pages are too short. It breaks one's train of thought to have to click the "next page" button every few sentences. For this reason, I don't agree with those who suggest that a page should never be long enough to require any scrolling at all. So just what is the ideal length for a page?

I don't believe there is a hard and fast answer to this question in terms of number of words or some similar measure. There are a number of other factors that have to be considered such as the number and size of pictures on the page, the font size, subject matter, intended audience, and so on. You might choose longer pages for a science site appealing to nuclear physicists, for instance, than a site geared towards 5th graders. Or if your pages load slow because your web host's server is underpowered, you might want to allow your pages a little more length than otherwise so as to spare the reader the pain of an extra page load or two (although if that is the case, you might also want to consider finding a faster web host).

In general, I would suggest trying for a happy medium. Keep the page short enough that it loads fast and is comfortable to read, skim, and move around in, but don't shorten it beyond that. I think there is room for some flexibility in this area. You might also take the length of the "last page" into consideration. That is, if splitting a page would leave you with a second page that is only a sentence or two long, it might be best not to split the page at all.