It’s not clear where the humble splash page originated. A decade ago, when Flash was experiencing an upsurge but the average internet user was still stuck on dial-up, the splash page provided a useful way of indicating to the user that the page was “loading”, and as a result was a fairly common occurrence. Although the average bandwidth available to end users has increased somewhat dramatically over recent years (and flash-based websites are becoming rarer), there are still a number of sites that utilise splash pages. Are they still relevant? Do they serve a purpose? We’ve done some research, and our findings are below.

Advantages of Splash Pages

• If your website is clearly divided into a small number of market sectors (e.g. “Business” and “Home Users”), it allows the user to avoid large portions of content that is irrelevant to them.
• Splash pages are generally content-light, so your marketing message or strap line can be openly conveyed.
• If you have an e-commerce site, splash pages can provide the user with a convenient way of choosing their country before they enter.

Disadvantages of Splash Pages

• Splash pages prevent people from getting to your content – people are visiting your site for a reason, and having a “loading” or splash page can act as an obstacle.
• From an SEO perspective, your home page is incredibly important. When you create a splash page, you are affecting what the googlebot sees. Given that splash pages are not generally content-rich, you could dramatically reduce your page rank.
• If your splash page only exists to demonstrate your marketing message, users may get frustrated by it upon repeat visits.
• Having a website that has a consistent look & feel is important, and typically splash pages look very different from the rest of the site.

Our Conclusion

Here at Studionet we really dislike splash pages, and the overall opinion is that they serve no real purpose. Given that they could put people off visiting your site and can affect your search rankings, the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. In our opinion, most of the advantages can be countered by having a well thought-out web design strategy.