Skip to main content

The Batavian site update

By Howard B. Owens

This morning you're seeing a slightly revised home page for The Batavian. It's no radical change -- we didn't get away from the basic layout, which has proven an easy format for readers to read and a successful model for the ads of local businesses -- but the design is a little cleaner.

We also added a long- and much-requested feature, a Facebook "like" button on stories (we need one on individual comments, too, but that will take some time yet to institute).

The other significant change is how ads are displayed. Except for the few premium positions on the site, the ads will now randomly shuffle on the page every time you load the page.  

In other words, you visit the home page and then come back later and reload it the ads on the left and the right that are part of the shuffle system will all change locations.

It's a random redistribution of the ads on the page ensuring each local business's ad gets mathematically equal appearances at each position on the page, from the top to the bottom.

Previously, I had to manually move the ads around about once a day.  

Giving ads an equal distribution should in itself lead to more clicks on ads. Also, the human eye is naturally drawn to things that change on a web page, so people who visit the site will see a different order of ads each visit.  

One last note, there was some bad code in the old site's layout. The new site has a fresh set of code controlling the layout, which should add (and initial feedback seems to be indicating this is true) a bit of improvement in the home page's load time.

Thank you to our IT guy, Nick, a Batavia resident, for his work on the redesign. We have more improvements to the site planned.

Doug Yeomans

I like the new site layout a lot. Fantastic job, Nick! The addition of the calendar is nice and the site loads much faster. The site is also much easier on the eyes for some reason.

Aug 13, 2011, 8:50am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

If you mean by removing the ads, no. But I've noticed this theme is pretty fast on my iphone, too. Frankly, I like our layout and design better for mobile than the NYT, for example.

Aug 13, 2011, 12:59pm Permalink
Ron C Welker

Nice job, it was getting to take forever to open the site, did not like the pop up full page add in the opening, :>( ....to in your face with the crazy stuff, enough already!

Aug 13, 2011, 1:40pm Permalink
Doug Yeomans

Ron Welker, get the free install of superantispyware. It's the best I've found for cleaning the spyware/malware off of your computer. That's more than likely what's responsible for your popup advert.

Aug 13, 2011, 3:29pm Permalink
Heidi Baylor

Seems like the text got smaller and is more difficult to read. Had to use my browser settings to zoom in and now the page has to be scrolled from left to right. Time to invest in a larger monitor!! I liked the ads being (mostly) in the same location...I always knew where to find them. Glad you don't have flashing, blinking ads ~ I've always liked your layout and ad sizes. Very happy to visit daily!

Aug 13, 2011, 9:32pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

There's never been a pop up ad for Crazy Cheap Cars. They run a wide ad at the top of the page and it's still running ... in rotation with Main Street Pizza.

Aug 14, 2011, 9:23am Permalink

Authentically Local