On 14 Jul 98, Rainmaker wrote:
> >How do I create a splash screen for my web site. I would like a splash
> >screen to be displayed for 10 seconds before my home page is displayed.
> Others will respond, but let me caution you that you will have
> problems with some search engines and not get listed.
Yes, I'll be "Others" today <g>
First I'll answer your question, then tell you why it may not be such a great idea.
To automatically force the browser to a new URL you use meta-refresh; so if your
splash page was 'one.html' and your main page was 'two.html', you would include
the following in the <head> of one.html:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="10; URL=http://your.com/two.html">
This means "reload this screen after 10 seconds, but with a new URL, two.html".
The number of seconds can be any value. If you omit the URL then the initial page
itself will refresh every 10 seconds.
Now... why splash screens aren't always desirable.
The main objection is that they usually have very little function other than to
waste the user's time; they are simply a superfluous step on the way to displaying
the information the user wants. And in the millisecond-attention-span milieu of the
Web, one always wants to avoid annoying users needlessly.
As well, the meta-refresh method can cause annoying problems itself. If you set
the time value too low, users with slow connection/browsers may find themselves
kicked onto the new page before really seeing the first one; set it too high and
many users sit thumb-twiddling, then get mad and go elsewhere. (Too short a
value can also cause a *big* hassle when users try to Back-button past your site
in their history list -- the refresh device will keep kicking them forwards again when
they just want to go back. *Major* public-relations faux pas :)
Finally, as George observes, using splash screens means that some major search
engines will miss all the important stuff on your site, since they use the first few
paragraphs of text on a site as their principal source of indexing info. So if -- as
is
very common -- your splash screen is just a snappy graphic or two, with the real
meat elsewhere, there's nothing for the spider to index.
Anyway, it's your call. At the very least, I recommend making a splash screen
clickable, rather than using meta refresh; that way the user doesn't run into some
of the problems noted above.
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
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