[Princeton]

Originally Posted by nexialys

if you have a portal with too much information, people do not visit anymore...

absolutely correct - I'm with you here.

But, the problem is not "too much information". The problem is too much junk information.

A lot of admins forget that the "portal" (main index page) is not about them...
the portal should be about converting new visitors and redirecting repeat readers. I say this because a lot of vbulletin sites (with portals) have a lot of "junk" blocks on the main page - which are always ignored. I guess some admins think it's cool. (IMO, they use it as a filler - and, it just hurts conversion)

Originally Posted by nexialys

the portal is for newcombers, not regular members who already bookmarked their prefered part of the site...

Bookmarking inner pages wouldn't affect bounce rate on portal.

Anyway...

Are you assuming all members bookmark a specific section of a site?

What's wrong with bookmarking the main index page? That's what most people do. My bookmark to this place is http://vbulletin.org - what do you say about that?

Unless your site is about 'WEB Development', it's safer to assume that a visitor DOES NOT understand how to bookmark OR what it is.

Originally Posted by nexialys

having a portal with a high % would be good for information portals, not communities.

arrgghh, I can't believe that came out of you

there's nothing good about a high bounce rate

A portal should be utilized to:

• stand out (in our case, from millions of other forums);
• grab attention;
• provide a snapshot of what's going on;
• cause action;
• and redirect to inner pages.

(I'm sure we can add a lot more to the above list. For now, that will do.)

A portal with no ads should have single digit bounce rate.
If portal contains ads, bounce rate should not exceed 10-20% (safe number).

If portal bounce rate is high - you should seriously consider a major overhaul.



NOTE
The term "portal" is used loosely to represent the main index page (root) of a site. In terms of a vbulletin site, this would include a page other than forum index.