How much value does the homepage of the portal still have?

once such simple and concise metaphor of the site :
The role of any product is to help users complete their mission needs, the site is no exception; each requirement is a task, each task has n multiple processes, each process has n multiple interface, each interface can be compared to a point, N point composition Line (process), n root Line Rub Cheng (Task), each user needs is a rope.
Tie all the rope head straight together is the homepage of the website;
All of this is a website.

1, first of all we must acknowledge the authenticity of this data results: The portal page traffic is significantly lower than any of its channel traffic . This situation is particularly prominent in China's portal site!

2. Why is there such a data result? I think the reason is simple:

• The browsing needs of netizens began to have a certain "purpose", they no longer confused on the home page wandering
• The homepage of the portal is too complicated, the rubbish content (including but not only advertisement) Overmuch, to the user's browsing has brought the quite big trouble. To be blunt: the user sees only three content at first sight: LOGO, advertisement, navigation menu; So they can only choose "navigation Menu"
• I would like to speculate on such a data: The Portal on the home page of clicks more than 75% from the top menu.
  (Another: 10% of the Novice netizens who are still wandering, 15% have "read the news" purpose but do not have a clear "see what kind of" news target Netizen)
• More and more services, more and more content classification, too high to enhance the user's "screening costs", forcing users to directly "skip".

3, we can say that most of our portal home in the slowly moving to a non-existent road. When our rope head is more and more disorganized, more and more stout huge difficult to pick, even on its also with a lot of prickly Thorn and deliberately around the N multiple slip merely , we can not give up under the premise only skip this rope head directly into the.

4, in fact, compared to our portal home page than the American home page value more than the ratio. It can be said that at present our Internet users directly into the level two channel or will be very little, they mostly want to pass through the home page.

5, better and earlier grasp of this value is a good opportunity, if NetEase can let me go in to see today's sports News (even if sports is not the default in the label, after my first click to remember my cookies can also), I will not choose to enter sohu.com first and then point "sports ”。 (Anyway, everyone is reproduced, go to that site is not all the same ... ）
6, remind: do not expect users to set up or customized, our majority of netizens will not do this. These jobs require you to take the initiative to help him finish. Take the advantage of the initiative and put it in front of him ...

7, tab display mode of application (in the same amount of content under the premise of YAHOO as an example)

effect comparison 1: Using the Tab method can make this part of the page display height of almost 1/4. An interface of no more than 3 screens makes the user's first feel easier.

Effect Comparison 2: (portal site's homepage content is too much, the user does not have the time and the energy to read and filter each information. After the adoption of the tab is actually from the first sense view of the reduced amount of information, reducing the difficulty of the user's sun, thereby promoting the user to stop to read the possibility.

effect Comparison 3: Assuming that all the content needs to be displayed as much as the premise, the first screen can display 2 groups of tabs, each group shows 4 channels. Then the tab first screen allows users to find more than 6 channels of information. (is found not to see!) You need to start an event on tab to see it.
For example, the "car" in the order of the channels is 8. A user has no clear demand for the "car", but has little interest. (A person with a very specific need is directly on the menu; there is no need for anyone. No matter how you show him he won't look, so I suppose so)
When the user enters the homepage that does not adopt tab: "The car" cannot let him discover on the first screen. He can't predict what to see when he drags the screen to the second screen, and even if he drags on, he's not so clear about what it's going to be like to drag the page down, and he's got little chance of dragging it down and seeing the car and clicking on him.
When the user enters the homepage that uses tab: Although the user can not see the "car" in the first screen, but he could see the "car" on the tab, he can clearly know "the label is the car information", he will go to touch and see the "car" is much more likely.
This is probably the use of external information to guide the user's behavior.

effect Comparison 4: The use of the tab directly displayed to the user content less, the user's focus more focused. According to the user's attention rate of data statistics, the recommended content should be displayed to the user more prominently, so that the purpose of guiding reading can be achieved.

8, above is not only the problem of the portal.

PS, on the web site annoying advertising problem, often see a very interesting and seems to be true analysis:

1, Chinese netizens still endure the stage, even if our portal has a lot of ads annoying him but he will not give up, because there is no alternative, because the ancient Chinese feudal history of our netizens have the inherent tolerance of virtue. And our netizens now do not have to give up the ability and level, so the design is very normal;

2, and this design is also feasible in the country. Advertisers recognize, but also can continue to receive high advertising fees.
Giving up is tantamount to giving up the grain of life.

I have no word for it ...