You are right I find it strange too that they want you to visit their website and then they make you feel like an entruder entering the site. Hugs Joyce

as someone who only has dial-up internet service available, it is truly frustrating.

Dial up is slow. By the time the Enter here page has finally loaded, i am getting frustrated. Then I see the Enter here button. That is when i hit the Red X and close the page.

If i can't get a glimpse of what is available to peak my interest right away, i don't have the patience to wait for another page to finish loading.

debi

I love the ones that want you to sign up to see their stuff, are you kidding!!! give my email just to see if I want to buy from you. I don't think so no business here that's for sure.

I agree with you. They wanna sell something and should not waste the time of their "wanna-be--customers" with give them the feeling as if they enter a secret kingdom or join a special club :o(
Let's see how ong they stay at the market with that politics *lol*
Greetings, Bettina

It seems such sites are "trying to be cute" but like the rest of you, I usually go elsewhere. Who wants to spend the day clicking?

I admit that I like to get in and get out of a website. But I don't mind the pretty inviting picture of 'enter here" I can certainly understand the frustration of those who do not have a fast internet connection.

I think the sites that have the "enter here" button or whatever you have to click on is trying to stop web crawlers and keep out the spammers. Just my opinion.

I'm good for one less click. It doesn't make it anymore inviting.

I agree with you. Arlene

Yep. That click to enter thing annoys me to no end. Half the time I have to search around the page to find the "enter" box to click as well. It's an annoyance, but it doesn't block me from entering the site, especially if it is a site I know and like.

I also agree that having to give your email address in order to see the designs a site is selling makes leave the site immediately. This is something new that I'm just beginning to encounter on sites.

Alice,
If you are referring to top100 sites when you click on a link to vote for a site the entrance page that you must click to enter is a requirement. It is that click to enter that adds one to the ranking count for the referring site. My site http://embroidery.gotop100.com/ does not require the click to enter if you just use the link above but any time it is to vote for a referring site it does. There is no other way to make the voting work. I do hope that no one is offended by the voting entrance pages.

There are many sites of all kinds (not just embroidery) that have those entrance pages and I don't particularly care for those either. In the Google Webmaster Tools it specifically states not to use them. It causes problems for Google somehow in indexing the sites. I don't remember just now what the problem was exactly. You probably know more about it than I since you do a lot of website maintenance.

Marcelle

Most of the sites I encounter that have this "title page" are older sites that have been around quite a while. That was obviously the way it was done when they were set up.
I find those sites with fancy backgrounds (the wallpaper) and flashing pictures much more annoying. And those that have a "click here for a larger picture" and then up pops a new window with exactly the same size picture, which was not large enough to satisfactorily see in the first place!
But really, one extra click takes that much time? You might just be missing some nice designs.

Yep, the easier the better. More important to have a secure 'payment' system etc.

Hi Alice,
I think that was a practice when the internet used my less band width, the front page would have that Enter message - an extra step. Now, it is no longer needed, and I agree it is annoying! It's antiquated, Sometimes when the domain was hosted one place and the actual site was hosted at a different place that was a way of handling that... And, of course, any of the pay to enter sites used that... like porn sites...
The best practice is the simplest - we don't want to make it too hard for the visitors :-)

I agree. I want to find what I need as fast as possible even if it's not embroidery. I also like sites that have a search engine.

Alice I think this is just too petty to even bother thinking about.
Surely the content is far more important than one extra keystroke.
Meg (the Cutie, not the moderator)

I have to agree with Megs. This is really quite petty..
It takes less then a micro second to click on Enter.
And no, their sites are not shrouded in mystery guarded by gate keepers. Nothing as melodramatic as that. Just different.
It has never bothered me. And why should it?

orginally this was a benefit if you had dailup and a site was pic heavy. It gave you the option to not load the site
wooh cute is SLOW TODAY took 3 minutes for this to show up as I typed