What's New Page

Todays relevance

[Visit Thailand]

A while back it was important for a site to have a what's new page, but I am seeing less and less.

Do you think the what's new page has finished.

The What's New Page I am talking about is the one regarding updates etc to the site.

[korkus2000]

I don't really see a need unless you can get the page to Freshed by Google to get pages in everflux. It also depends how large your site is.

[Marketing Guy]

Im actually in the middle of redesigning one of my sites and one of the main changes im making is a site news / what's new bar.

I hope it's not going out! :)

My site isn't that big, but with a discussion forum and articles being added regularly, then I think the what's new feature would be useful for regular users.

The WW homepage could be viewed upon as being a what's new page, as recent (and top) discussions are added each day. And recent posts anyone? ;)

But as Korkus said, it's very much down to the type and size of site.

I also think the format in which it's done plays an important part.

Do people want to go to a new page just to see what's new? Or do they want to see it on arrival to the site? Are the majority of people coming to your site via your homepage or internal pages?

Scott :)

[fathom]

I think it get's married with media center, press releases, promotional banners, banners in general, and/or the more traditional link that actually reflects page content... "What's New" really doesn't say much about what is on the other side of the click, and I suspect most are not really interested just "what's new" unless the new part is of interest to them.

Hiding the topic(s) doesn't generally make people click.

When it comes right down to it, unless you have a dedicate editor for daily/weekly changes it doesn't make alot of sense.

Noting: a client in 2002 had a "What's New" page - and the last change of 2000... kind of defeats the purpose... and lots of web sites are the same way.