Top Back Button Offenses?

What causes you to press the back button out of a site?

[Brett_Tabke]

What causes you to press the back button out of a site on your first visit?

Mine:
1) Slow loading pages. If it's slow on dsl, I'm gone.
2) People who over ride underlining of links.
3) Popups, Popunders, excessively annoying flash ads.
4) Stuff flying around the screen and embedded video.
5) Mass visual noise. Spammy menu systems with 10billion links so you have to dig to find the content.

-------

Most of those can be dealt with by modern browsers with controls.

[Nick_W]

Popups, Popunders, excessively annoying flash ads

Since disabling them I no longer have this problem (Opera!) but this would be my number one.

2. Text I can't read or resize
3. Anything that flashes
3. If I see one more "Optimized for.." thingy I'll scream!

Nick

[Mike_Mackin]

Shopping Malls with 100's of affiliate links and BANNERS.

[grnidone]

Banners that strobe.

[mivox]

Music without an obvious "off" button. Can't stand having my computer suddenly start blaring music at me.

Really agressive cookie setting... There is absolutely no reason on earth I should have to deal with 20-odd cookie notification messages when I load a site.

non-opera and/or mac compatible... almost always due to either an IE/Netscape only browser sniffer, or someone who doesn't test their CSS in anything but their own preferred browser. C'mon people, if I can bend over backwards to make sure all your Windows browsers can use my site, can't you get someone to give your site a quick look-over on a Mac?

[msr986]

Sound! Why do people expect that bad MIDI music will enhanced my surfing experience?

[glengara]

Most things that scroll.

[mat_bastian]

sites that appear to have the answers for everything. The site that claims to specialize in everything in reality specialize in nothing. There is no excuse on the web for trying to be all things to all people. Do me a favor...Get another domain. Sites without focus drive me crazy.

[digitalghost]

1. More than one pop-up, pop-under
2. Any Music
3. Anything that blinks.
4. Major grammatical errors and constant spelling errors.
5. All pages open in new windows.
6. Promised info isn't on the page.
7. Non-religious sites with religious information on them.
8. Cursor trails
9. Poor background/text choices Neon Green on a Red background for example
10. Poor typography

[Dreamquick]

11. Anti-right-click scripts when I want to open in a new window.

- Tony

[Chris_R]

I couldn't agree with msr986 more.

I almost always hit back when there is sound. Nothing irritates me more. I will stay for popunders, but music and sound really bother me.

[Liane]

All of the above! ;)

[defanjos]

The one that really ticks me off is the mouse pointer trails. I usually leave the site in a nanosecond when I see it.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Affiliate links masquerading as a content site.

[jamesa]

And how about Java navigation menus (Java, not JavaScript). And Java scrollers/tickers. Ugh!

[fathom]

If the information is not visual in the on-screen area, I see no need to scroll or click further.

[EliteWeb]

MIDI or Music, or Videos which start playing when I dont want them too which includes flash advertisement.

also see Adult Pictures (while at work) also causes me to hit ALT-F4 or back button.

2 popups banners cause me to go out. one is easy enough to close. or if i keep navigating it still has popups on every page refresh im out.

[jk3210]

1.) Hello and Welcome...

2.) Click to Enter...

[Shane]

I am with EliteWeb, one pop up is bad but if it refreshes every time I move to another page, say good-bye, no purchases, no subscriptions, notta.

..... Shane

[jatar_k]

1. "my garbage site doesn't work on your browser because you need to update it" - last time I checked moz 1.1 is an updated browser.

That not only makes me not use the site but usually promotes me to bad mouth it to every person I see or speak to (I'm not kidding).

2. music
3. pop ups, but haven't seen one in ages with moz
4. no contact us page, I always like to know where people are at
5. custom cursors

<added>6. flash intros.
7. requested popups who's behaviour makes them act like unrequested ones so that they get stopped by moz and then the site appears to be broken.

[edited by: jatar_k at 10:52 pm (utc) on Nov. 29, 2002]

[creative craig]

1: Flash intro with a preloader
2: Already said, but no right click
3: 99% of all cookies
4: Re-directs
5: Pop-up/under ads

Craig

<edit>Fix typos :)</edit>

[radiosky]

If my grey bar says "29 items remaining."

They are substituting eye candy for real content.

I can't add anything else except to say Thank God somebody posted this Thread and it needs to become a Press Release sent to every hotshot Webmaster Newsletter out there.

[jen24815]

1. Flash intros or splash screen
2. Multiple pop-ups
3. Blinking banners
4. Music
5. Horizontal scrollbar
6. Typos/errors in grammar
7. Red text on blue background or vice versa
8. No contact info on a sales site!
9. That extremely annoying long, "but wait, there's more!"-type copy that tons of sites use now. I NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES read it. Apparently some people do, though. :)
10. Sites that advertise things I find morally objectionable

An exception to #2: I will tolerate pop-ups, if it's a good info site. Hey, the webmasters of some of these sites put up some really good content, so I'll suffer through a few pop-ups so they can make a buck - that's only fair.

[gsx]

I did like:

"An amusing site on the web bears a note on the home page saying, 'this site best seen...if you come round my house and look at it on my monitor'."

(from [max-hits.net...]

[shelleycat]

Flash intro's with no text link to let me into the site. I'm not prepared to watch something saying "loading..." for five minutes just to find some content. And all the webmaster needed to do was take five seconds to add a text link, so it annoys me that they were so thoughtless.

Pages I can't read. If the text is too small or the colour blends into the background I won't strain my eyes trying to read it. I can think of at least one website which lost the chance to take my money recently because of this.

Really slow loading pages are a problem, I have a slow connection and old computer though so I can't usually hit the back button but instead have to wait til I can kill the screen completely. Assuming my whole computer hasn't frozen of course.

Sound, however, is no longer a problem. I changed the setting in 'internet options' so webpages don't play sound (or video) and my speakers are plugged into a diskman instead of my computer.

Pop ups/unders don't make me back out either, unless there are too many of them (in which case they will freeze my computer). I'm usually pretty quick at closing them before they load. They will make me dislike the site though and ruin any chance of a return visit or sale.

[mole]

tiny text on black backgrounds.
'fraid many "web design" sites do it.

[Bernie]

top five:

1. retina-peel-off colours
2. midi-tunes
3. under construction (since 1990)
4. pop-up thunderstorms
5. awful background wallpaper-img

[fathom]

jk3210 wrote: 2.) Click to Enter...

Ya, ok... "I thought I already did" comes to mind. ;)

excellent point jk3210!

[Bernie]

forgot something: netscape now button (no offense netscape!)

[europeforvisitors]

For me, one "top back button offense" is code that won't let me use my back button.

I also hate sites that aren't what they claim to be: e.g., hotel affiliate sites that pretend to be destination sites but contain only a smattering of boilerplate information that was supplied by the affiliate vendor or lifted from a guidebook.

I'm also turned off by sites that use popups and popunders, and I've stopped linking to such sites unless they're too good to ignore.