How to make sure people never visit your web site more than once

[bigred]

Set it up so that when they hit the "back" button, it YANKS them right back to your site, even though they clearly want to leave.

Oddly, many businesses still seem to think it will get people to stick around. Go figure.

[/rant]

[tkingdoll]

I was complaining about this very thing yesterday. Drives me nuts.

Also:

- Flash intros with no skip option (I've even seen Flash-only website with no HTML-only option. How rude! And stupid!)

- Background music that reloads from the beginning when you navigate to a new page on the same site.

[CFLarsen]

It's this "sticky site" idea. It's been around for many years now.

What these companies don't realize is that a website isn't like a physical store. We know that the more time you spend i a store, the higher the chance of you buying something. But on the Internet, the last thing you want to do is spend time on a website that wants your money.

Today, users are extremely goal-driven when they visit a website. Nobody surfs anymore, just for the heck of it. People know what they want, and they won't spend unnecessary time there. A lot of online shopping is done during work hours, and nobody wants to be caught by the boss on a non-work related site they can't get away from in a hurry.

It's logic for chickens, but unfortunately, these companies are run by people with lower IQ than chickens.

[bigred]

Excellent points all around.

The low IQ theory is the only one I see that makes any sense as well. wtf? Do they frequent stores that yank them by the collar as they try to walk out the door, prompting this brilliant idea?

[Paulhoff]

You click you mouse on the little down button next the the Back tab and click on the list where you want to go back too. If you don't know this already.

There is always a little trick we don't know about.

Paul

:) :) :)

[scribble]

This is more the fault of your browser than the fault of the site.

It happens when you go to a page, and you're redirected to another page. Then when you click the back button, your browser reloads the redirection, and follows it again, landing you on the same page.

Given that redirecting pages is a very useful tool, and part of the HTTP specs since nearly the dawn of time, I wouldn't blame the site creator for using them. I would blame your browser for not anticipating that when you use the back button to go to a page that is merely a redirect, you're probably browsing backwards through your histroy and don't, in fact, want to follow the redirect again.

The solution is, as mentioned by the previous poster, to use the drop-down available in all major browsers to select the page you want to go back to, rather than just blindly clicking the back button. Alternatively, you can click the back button twice, really quickly, in hopes that you'll go back twice before the system completes loading the redirect request.

Can you give me an example of a site that definitely does this through maliciousness and not just through use of an innocent redirect?

-Chris

[IllegalArgument]

Originally posted by CFLarsen
Nobody surfs anymore, just for the heck of it. People know what they want, and they won't spend unnecessary time there.


I still surf around for the fun of it. :)

[Anti_Hypeman]

Image maps are the devil.

[Wudang]

Originally posted by scribble
This is more the fault of your browser than the fault of the site.


It doesn't matter who's fault it is. The job of someone designing any system is to make the technology fit people, not the other way around. I make a mental note never to revisit sights that allow this to happen.

[Rat]

Originally posted by scribble
This is more the fault of your browser than the fault of the site.

It happens when you go to a page, and you're redirected to another page. Then when you click the back button, your browser reloads the redirection, and follows it again, landing you on the same page.


Won't using the JS 'replace' rather than an http redirect prevent this problem anyway?

Cheers,
Rat.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Someone explain to me why browsers don't have options like:

( ) do not let anything but me resize my window

( ) Do not let anything futz with my navigation history


~~ Paul

[Rat]

Firefox will let you prevent sites from messing with window sizes. Tools>Options>Web Features>Javascript>Advanced. The only way that I'm aware of to mess with your history is to either use frames badly (some would say that's the only way to use frames), or use javascript location.replace, the point of which is to prevent the problem originally presented.

Cheers,
Rat.

[SmooveK]

I've never had a problem with people wanting to visit my web site more than once.

Thanks for the reminder. :(

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Someone explain to me why browsers don't have options like:

( ) do not let anything but me resize my window

( ) Do not let anything futz with my navigation history


~~ Paul

I don't know about the first one, but the ability to force-trash your navigation history is a basic requirement of "logout" buttons so you can walk away from a kiosk browser and the next user can't back into the web site logged in as you.

[American]

From the writers at the Onion: http://www.barryploegel.com/.

A demonstration in poor web design. Slightly outdated, in fact...

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by American
From the writers at the Onion: http://www.barryploegel.com/.

A demonstration in poor web design. Slightly outdated, in fact...

They totally copied REO Speedwagon....

[bigred]

I am not happy about the fact that I understood that last reply.

I'm spending WAY too much time here.

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Wudang
It doesn't matter who's fault it is. The job of someone designing any system is to make the technology fit people, not the other way around. I make a mental note never to revisit sights that allow this to happen.

I think scribble is right. It does matter if it's done on purpose by a web-designer or if an ignorant user like me can fix its browser in order not to stick on sites.

Scribble, you hi-tech skeptic, you. :)

[bigred]

Originally posted by bigred
Set it up so that when they hit the "back" button, it YANKS them right back to your site, even though they clearly want to leave.

Oddly, many businesses still seem to think it will get people to stick around. Go figure.

[/rant] I am utterly and COMPLETELY shocked that this wonderful, otherwise mistake-free company would now engage in this!!


http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/muoptdefault.aspx?ln=en&returnurl=http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us

POSs. Just install the freakin SP2 file.