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Home is where the ‘page’ is
HOMEPAGES, a new online genre thanks to the internet, is indeed the most “hip” thing to do these days . Everyone who uses the internet has a homepage. Some users keep having the same homepage that came when they bought, while others pick new ones.
Homepages, also known as default pages, “is the main page or the first page of a website that a browser opens with, or where the browser will return if the home button on the navigation toolbar is pressed.” Good homepages should attract, hold the attention of visitors and direct them to content within the rest of the site.
Webmasters and designers obviously go a long way in their endeavours that users make their site homepages as their own, apart from tweaking them for search engines. Most websites have options like “make us your home page,” “click here to make us your home page and “click to make this as a default page.” However that is just not enough particularly with savvy and choosy users.
Typically, homepages provide backgrounds of the website they belong to and links to other information sources. Homepages are more general in focus and introduce main concepts, rather than concentrating on one subject. Users have the option to set the homepage — click on tools on the browser toolbar, internet options, and use current or use default (which, in case of Windows, is the MSN homepage) or use blank. Some do it while others don’t bother.
One wonders what users look for when they select homepages on their computers. Having seen a lot of homepages, I have been asking a few internet users what theirs is set to. Why they like it? Why did they prefer it and what they use it for? Empirical observations show that over 65 per cent users just leave it as whatever it was when they got their computer. In case of local users, it is mostly, the MSN homepage, because it comes with the Windows operating System. “They simply may be casual or may be lacking know how to manipulate and set their homepage afresh,” says Zahid Shazad, webmaster of Fauji Foundation hospital’s website.
Out of those who change their home page, some 15 per cent have a blank page and 20 per cent have selected their most favourite site’s homepage. Aamir Waqas, a working journalist says, “I have set my browser to open as a blank page when I launch it. I like it uncluttered and simple. I have to work on different sites they are all bookmarked in the Favorites cache. I just point my mouse to the one I want to explore and it opens. It is simple.”
Besides content, convenience also matters. Users prefer to do their job with least possible clicks. Dr Farid Abbas, a research fellow who writes research-based case studies for post-graduate students in one university says, “I have set Yahoo Mail as my home page because I find it easy to go to my inbox. But I keep changing it. When I am doing some project, I have the homepage of the related site.”
Searching on the internet is one major activity online. Every user is looking for one thing or the other. One study says that “75 per cent of internet users gather web contents, while 25 per cent search for specific items.” Hence many users are found with search engines set as homepages on their machines with Google topping the list.
The design of homepages are one of the major attractions for young users — the fraternity that has diverse interests and activities online. Some love to search things they like online, others like news about games that a few of the portals display in their ever-rotating tiles. Those who are fond of sending greeting cards have set sites, which offer the greeting cards facility, as their home page. I found a couple of young users with sites that dish out similies, a new one every day.
Those who have their own websites, personal or business, like to see own page first and set them as default. “It is an ego booster to see one’s own name, product or company, says Dr Muhammad Anwar, a sociologist.
The phenomenon of selecting homepages has taken a new dimension with the surge of self-published websites called web logs (blogs). According to Technorati, a company considered as an authority on what is going on in the Blogosphere, “the current number of blogs is now over 8 times more than the 500,000 blogs it measured in June, 2003.” The company tracked three million blogs as of the first week of July 2004, and has added over one million blogs to its stable since then.
Another report says that a new weblog is created every 5.8 seconds, which roughly translates into 15,000 new blogs everyday. Many internet users are maintaining their own blogs and slike to set them as their home pages, for increasing their hit counts if nothing else.
Blogs are the ultimate when it comes to customisation. Users can link all that they need on one page. I have also linked every thing I need on the internet including search facility on my blog and have set that as a homepage.
Homepages of websites are being used to construct the identity of people or products. Webmasters and marketers are vying for users’ attention. On the other hand, much choice is available to users and when they come to a site, “almost 8 out of 10 internet users are saying this: I have been lead here, now what next. Tell me why I should visit here again; let alone making this my homepage.” The more choice the users have, the choosier they will become and so on and so forth.
So what is your homepage? The internet presents an array of homepages one can choose from and so it all depends on what your tastes and preferences are. If you still have a hard time deciding, you can always make set this writer’s blog as your homepage.
The writer
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