splash pages

I was curious, why does everyone say to get rid of splash pages. Are they
not to used, and if so is it because they have no purpose?

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 06:01:31 GMT, "Virginia" <missjoker97 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

I'll bite ...

I was curious, why does everyone say to get rid of splash pages. Are they
not to used, and if so is it because they have no purpose?

They were a fad on personal home pages back in the mid-to-late 90's.
It has kind of slacked off since then as in the hey-day it seemed like
almost all the personal sites used them. A few commercial sites use
them; note the word there being few.

The one, like on the photographer's site you shared, is pointless and
only keeps me - and others - one click away from the actual content of
the site. After all - all it is a second type of logo created for the
site and one link; but that one link being to the _actual_ main page
of the site.

You could have a splash page if really really wanting one. The above,
however, is an example of one that is not a prime example of one for
the kind of site you are wishing to share it at. Secondly consider
that the person asking you to create a site for them is likely also a
bit interested in getting some traffic from search engines. I doubt he
cares to rank for the word "enter" or the other common splash-click
the image to enter-page phrase of "click image to enter".

Personal home page you could probably get away with the one-link/image
entrance page touch. Look at the main page of the photographer's site
again. Now look at it as if you happened to go to the site for the
first time, say as a bride looking for a photographer, what do you
see? A logo. Nothing informative about that now is there?

Compare to one of the photographer's regional competitors:
http://www.mountainlightstudio.com/
Notice how they took the splash page to being informative as well as
being a splash page to the site [it is not linked from the inner pages
of the site - so clearly regarded as being a splash page].

As I said; be creative and you could probably come up with a better
splash page for a commercial site use. Otherwise, drop it as it is
just a barrier [right now] from the actual content therefore not
really helping the site at all - even design-wise. Granted, you said
the client wanted a splash page but does it have to be the simplistic
personal home page flavored kind?

I know you didn't ask about it as well but ....

You can also ditch the no-right-click script; also pointless in the
end and just irritates many people - and those being ones that weren't
interested in snagging any images from the site. Those interested in
snagging the images already know they don't need to worry about that
script as there are a variety of other options and they may use those
instead of trying to use the right click method to begin with so you
didn't deter those people - and no, the 100+ blank lines won't fool
those folks. Didn't fool anyone in this NG, did it? So will it really
deter people from "snagging" the mages or the source code?

Put the copyright notice on the page if wanting to share one and
perhaps put copyright info ON the images somehow as well.

Carol

In message <%K_Kd.211355$Xk.179676@pd7tw3no>, Virginia
<missjoker97 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> writes

I was curious, why does everyone say to get rid of splash pages. Are they
not to used, and if so is it because they have no purpose?


It all depends on whether the 'splash' page does, in fact, serve any

purpose.

The only real use I can think of is when you want to offer the visitor a
choice of presentations for the site:

e.g. Frames v. No-frames
Flash v. Non-flash

regards.

--
Jake

"CarolW." <from_you (AT) nomail (DOT) com> wrote

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 06:01:31 GMT, "Virginia" <missjoker97 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com
wrote:

I'll bite ...

I was curious, why does everyone say to get rid of splash pages. Are
they
not to used, and if so is it because they have no purpose?

They were a fad on personal home pages back in the mid-to-late 90's.
It has kind of slacked off since then as in the hey-day it seemed like
almost all the personal sites used them. A few commercial sites use
them; note the word there being few.

The one, like on the photographer's site you shared, is pointless and
only keeps me - and others - one click away from the actual content of
the site. After all - all it is a second type of logo created for the
site and one link; but that one link being to the _actual_ main page
of the site.

You could have a splash page if really really wanting one. The above,
however, is an example of one that is not a prime example of one for
the kind of site you are wishing to share it at. Secondly consider
that the person asking you to create a site for them is likely also a
bit interested in getting some traffic from search engines. I doubt he
cares to rank for the word "enter" or the other common splash-click
the image to enter-page phrase of "click image to enter".

Personal home page you could probably get away with the one-link/image
entrance page touch. Look at the main page of the photographer's site
again. Now look at it as if you happened to go to the site for the
first time, say as a bride looking for a photographer, what do you
see? A logo. Nothing informative about that now is there?

Compare to one of the photographer's regional competitors:
http://www.mountainlightstudio.com/
Notice how they took the splash page to being informative as well as
being a splash page to the site [it is not linked from the inner pages
of the site - so clearly regarded as being a splash page].

As I said; be creative and you could probably come up with a better
splash page for a commercial site use. Otherwise, drop it as it is
just a barrier [right now] from the actual content therefore not
really helping the site at all - even design-wise. Granted, you said
the client wanted a splash page but does it have to be the simplistic
personal home page flavored kind?

I know you didn't ask about it as well but ....

You can also ditch the no-right-click script; also pointless in the
end and just irritates many people - and those being ones that weren't
interested in snagging any images from the site. Those interested in
snagging the images already know they don't need to worry about that
script as there are a variety of other options and they may use those
instead of trying to use the right click method to begin with so you
didn't deter those people - and no, the 100+ blank lines won't fool
those folks. Didn't fool anyone in this NG, did it? So will it really
deter people from "snagging" the mages or the source code?

Put the copyright notice on the page if wanting to share one and
perhaps put copyright info ON the images somehow as well.

Carol

Yes I agree with you Carol. The copyright part was something the
photographer was adamant about. I know all you have to do is use PSP or
many other programs and capture the image. He also wanted the splash page
just like it is. I guess it will have to stay that way because I am not
going to do it for free :-)

Thank you for your comments. I appreciated them

"jake" wrote:
: The only real use I can think of is when you want to offer the
visitor a
: choice of presentations for the site:
:
: e.g. Frames v. No-frames
: Flash v. Non-flash

Or a choice of languages, e.g. English vs. French. Even then, I like
to see the splash page have some content, such as an introductory
paragraph or two in each language.

Lois

Virginia wrote:

I was curious, why does everyone say to get rid of splash pages. Are they
not to used, and if so is it because they have no purpose?

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/dont...gnwithsex.html

--
mbstevens http://www.mbstevens.com

Lois wrote:

Or a choice of languages, e.g. English vs. French. Even then, I like
to see the splash page have some content, such as an introductory
paragraph or two in each language.

Yes, and even then it's quite difficult to justify a splash page, as you
have to fight for those 8 seconds an average user waits in order to get
the content...

--
www.daszeichen.ch
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Lois wrote:
: > Or a choice of languages, e.g. English vs. French. Even then, I
like
: > to see the splash page have some content, such as an introductory
: > paragraph or two in each language.

"Bernhard Sturm" responded:
: Yes, and even then it's quite difficult to justify a splash page,
as you
: have to fight for those 8 seconds an average user waits in order to
get
: the content...

I don't remember seeing this, but the splash page for sites with
different languages could include a menu in each language as well as
an introduction. That way, visitors could get to the page they want
with one click.

Also, sites with 2 languages often have URLs something like
example.com/en/index.html and example.com/fr/index.html. With URLs
like that, and if the search engines recognize those pages as the
starting pages, visitors could get to the home page in their language
right away.

Lois

You all make valid points, but some of my clients insist that splash
pages serve a branding purpose.

At least I try to shorten them to 5 seconds...

As for the search engine issue, I heard a rumour that Google doesn't
like splash pages and will 'bleep' over websites with them...any truth?

MMD


Lois wrote:

Lois wrote:
: > Or a choice of languages, e.g. English vs. French. Even then, I
like
: > to see the splash page have some content, such as an introductory
: > paragraph or two in each language.

"Bernhard Sturm" responded:
: Yes, and even then it's quite difficult to justify a splash page,
as you
: have to fight for those 8 seconds an average user waits in order to
get
: the content...

I don't remember seeing this, but the splash page for sites with
different languages could include a menu in each language as well as
an introduction. That way, visitors could get to the page they want
with one click.

Also, sites with 2 languages often have URLs something like
example.com/en/index.html and example.com/fr/index.html. With URLs
like that, and if the search engines recognize those pages as the
starting pages, visitors could get to the home page in their language
right away.

Lois

MMD wrote:

You all make valid points, but some of my clients insist that splash
pages serve a branding purpose.

As for the search engine issue, I heard a rumour that Google doesn't
like splash pages and will 'bleep' over websites with them...any truth?

Whilst google will try to find links/redirects inside flash files, due
to the number of ways of specifying them, not all can be found.

The safe solution is to provide a brief HTML "Skip Intro" (or similar)
link nearby.

Hth,
--
Ben M.