about.com

About.com
**Quick, Easy & Reliable**

About.com is one of the useful directories that is currently on the internet that you would regularly come across if you typed a topic into a search engine. About.com is basically a search directory that offers users the ability to search through many different topics that they may wish to know bout.

Topics
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When reviewing a web site I usually like to go onto and have a good play around with it. Even though I’ve used About.com before I started with the basics of going to the homepage (www.about.com). From here I was greeted with a large list of topics ranging from A to Z. When clicking on letter you search would be narrowed down to that letter. Randomly I chose to click on Bed & Breakfasts to have a good look around for what was on offer. As you would have thought a list of likely bed and breakfast were displayed. Each one with a quick review next to it. I had been looking for bed and breakfasts so another box below the list had been displayed which showed the option to look for local travel and attractions near bed and breakfasts. I found this very useful which allows the user to go that one step forward which makes there no reason for the user to go off the web site to look some where completely different.

At the top of the page there was also a list of other topics that could have been related to what I had been searching for.

If you would prefer not to go through topics by letter then there is the option to use a search box where you can enter your search criteria and click search. This will allow articles and search results to be found on the word or words that you are looking for.

Web Design
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I thought About.com had a very professional design of which there are good and bad points that can be drawn from the design. The good points are as follows:-

About.com offers a vast amount of information to any user. Many web sites attempt to sell some the information that it contains by getting the user to sign up for an account. About.com doesn’t do this. Instead it offers all the knowledge that it has in its directory to user for free. EXCELLENT!

The bad points of the web design are as follows:-

The only points of its web design that I didn’t like was the amount of scrolling that was required and the advertisement. Some of the latest web design rules specify that when creating web site you should attempt to keep scrolling down to a minimum because it has been found that many users will only scroll so far and some user have been known to be lazy. The amount of scrolling required for a topic was extensive and could have been considered unreasonable on certain aspects of the site.

There were not vast amounts of advertisements however I found advertisements at the top and bottom of every page. These were usually under the heading Sponsored Links. Some advertisements included Google search results where if a user clicks on them the site gets paid a small amount per user. This level of advertisement can sometimes take away the professional aspect of a web site away because it can some times seem too much for a user. A user is only looking at a site because they are looking at something but if they are shown something they do not want to see they may go else where.

Conclusion
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About.com is a professional web site that offers the user a wide directory of information to help assist them in finding what they are looking for. I think About.com is an amazing web site with a vast amount to offer the user. It offers vast amounts of information to any user. I would definitely recommend this web site.

Thank you for reading :)