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Top-level
@tomw I measure my 'eras' of the Web based on if I still use bookmarks or not. Before, I'd go out and find stuff, and bookmark it to check back. Friends would recommend funny pages. You'd whisper about rumors of buying drugs online through the mail. Forums would welcome newcomers by telling them to read the sticky. Now, I go on Reddit and just click the links it brings me to and that's it. 😔 8 comments
@tomw I think unfortunately that is one of the elements driving the phenomena of weaponized fake news. People are so used to coming into a news article via a link or a feed, that as long as the page passes the smell test on a single page, it's good enough. Like I have been routinely shocked at how many major fake news articles going viral just straight up have lorem Ipsum on the about page, or use another paper's legal statements, complete with the name.  @msprout Yes for sure - there's no need to even have a track record of other articles, the vast majority won't check. (I mean, a lot of people share without even clicking the link, if it appears to confirm something they want to believe.) @tomw I am a former journalist and man, I am so pissed that I was required to call people and confirm facts and shit. I could have been making stuff up the whole time 😂 @tomw @msprout FWIW, I've been running a mobile tech news blog since 2008, and while traffic patterns have changed a lot over the years, the homepage is still one of my most viewed pages. But it's true that only a small portion of visitors come to the site directly. The vast majority of our traffic comes from search engines. Some people search for the name of the site. Others probably read an article then click the homepage. Most probably read an article then leave. @bradlinder @msprout Yeah, home and about pages are still high in views (so "no one is looking at it" was an exaggeration on my part), but they're rarely the entry point, they're where a minority of people go to find out more about this site they have landed on @tomw @msprout Fair. I would say that it's not necessarily the place where you'll make a first impression, but for folks that are looking to stock around, you want them to be nice and informative. I've found that since the shift to mobile, what's next to useless is the sidebar. Place as much info as you want about the site I'm the sidebar, and maybe some desktop users will notice, but good luck getting mobile visitors to scroll down and find it! |
Gregory's Server
@msprout Yes it's pretty rare to go and check a site directly. As a web developer I always notice that people obsess over their site's front page layout but no one is looking at it: the traffic is all direct to the articles/pages and it's from social media (or occasionally email, WhatsApp etc).