//-- PureGuava.com

[b0xy]

Not a gaming site, but still would appreciate thoughts.


http://www.pureguava.com

 

[SkuZZy]

It took forever to load and I even waited for the novelty pre-load thingy. Is it really neccisary to pre-load a 48,000 bytes site? I think your server is just slow or something, cause even after the "pre-load" it took a good 2 minutes for the entire page to load and i'm on cable.

 

[b0xy]

loads a LOT quicker than that for me and Im on a 24kbps(less than 56k) connection.


Someone else mentioned that to me who is a regular to the site, I think it may have something to do with the DNS propogating or some shit, cuz I just barely switched off a ghetto server to a better one.

Bout the preloader, I wanted a splash page, and for it to auto redirect, and it just add's a little somethin to it to have the bar go across.... Im thinking of just switching to a timed meta refresh tho on a regular splash.

 

[SkuZZy]

It's a nice site. After the main page loaded, the forums and stuff loaded really fast. I think you just need to take that POS pre-load crap out. Those things barely even work anyways, they aren't any faster than the regular site loading. They were originally just created because back when it was all 28.8 and 56k modems, sites looked really ugly with broken images while you waited for them to load, so people added pre-load scripts to make it look more professional and dynamic. But now-a-days they aren't needed. I dunno why you put it up there, but if you take it down you'll probably notice an increase in traffic. I enjoyed your site though, very nice setup you got there!

SkuZZy

 

[b0xy]

youre right, I think ill just do the meta redirect. how long would you think would be appropriate? (I mean to only have it there so if they have the window in the bg, or just plain dont click the image to enter)

 

[SkuZZy]

I think you should just redirect them instantly. But that's just me, I don't really like splash pages / redirect pages. Just make it so that when they type in www.pureguava.com they are automatically forwarded to http://www.pureguava.com/forum/portal.php ... or else, move the /forums directory to your main directly (like I have here @ battleforums.com).

SkuZZy

 

[b0xy]

Originally posted by SkuZZy
I think you should just redirect them instantly. But that's just me, I don't really like splash pages / redirect pages. Just make it so that when they type in www.pureguava.com they are automatically forwarded to http://www.pureguava.com/forum/portal.php ... or else, move the /forums directory to your main directly (like I have here @ battleforums.com).

SkuZZy

I dont wanna change location of any files again lol. I lost a lot of traffic from search engines when i did that. Even tho I put up a custom error page, still no one clicked passed it when they got it.

I put a 15 second META redirect on it, also the image and a link are clickable to enter into the site before the meta does it. I also decided to change the damn error thing and add a meta into that to redirect them to the homepage. Tired of losing hits cuz damn google wont re-index me.

 

[b0xy]

I found out what was slowing the portal.php down. One of the topsites I had uses a script tag, and their site is down right now, so it was trying to load that script and couldnt, thats why it took so long. It loads in like a second now

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by b0xy


I dont wanna change location of any files again lol. I lost a lot of traffic from search engines when i did that. Even tho I put up a custom error page, still no one clicked passed it when they got it.

Use .htaccess to redirect then. It's flawless and works instantly. Meta redirect doesn't work for everyone and it's slower. If you're on apache, just put this in a .htaccess file in the main directory:

Redirect permanent /  [url]http://www.pureguava.com/forum/portal.php[/url]

That will redirect them instantly. Just my opinion, but 15 second meta redirect isn't good, that's basically like a splash page and splash pages cause visitors to leave (cause some people just think it's under construction, trust me, I used to be in e-marketing).

 

[b0xy]

I've removed the splash page, and updated teh layout of the site.


I moved everything into the / directory instead of the /forum and Ive integrated the forums into the main page, or the other way around rather. The side colums are now on the side of the forums in the most common spots of the forum.


Lemme know what you think, im gonna be uploading some more styles later(when i finally fix my wciii lol) but for right now there's only the one style .

 

[SkuZZy]

Originally posted by b0xy
I've removed the splash page, and updated teh layout of the site.


I moved everything into the / directory instead of the /forum and Ive integrated the forums into the main page, or the other way around rather. The side colums are now on the side of the forums in the most common spots of the forum.


Lemme know what you think, im gonna be uploading some more styles later(when i finally fix my wciii lol) but for right now there's only the one style .

You've been busy!

It's much better without the splash page IMO. Good choice moving it all to the main directory. The new design is great. I want to put side column's on the side of these forums a well, but i'm running into a few problems with vb. Overall I think it's great. I feel motivated to make a new design for battle forums now

 

[b0xy]

I've completely redone the site Skuzzy, lemme know what you think


Its new software too, the frontend is my scripts, the forums are invisionboard