When you visit a new site, whether that site is trying to sell you something or not. What causes a good impression on you in terms of the reliability and reputation of a website? For me it would be well designed images, that don't look like clip-art, and are up to date with the latest trends (i.e. following microsoft) that's all I look at really...PR has no real meaning to me either. I do ocassionally check the Alexa ranking, but I hear that that's kind of a crock as well.
The website needs to look good, clean and simple... It need to look actual with nice images, but not full of those stock images that everyone has and uses... If it's full of flashing banners and huge letter sizes then I will leave... Microsoft is a good example! I would say PayPal is great too.
A good site would be one that is easy to navigate, and also not having ads and banners go into the content nor try to get me to click ads
for me, it is the first impression that does the most when I vist a site. Unless there's some bad things hiding in between, the first 10-15 seconds are important - so that I stay there. After which, it is the content of the site and how easy it is to find the best content of the site (whether by search or good navigation)
I'm sure everyone has their own ideas on what makes a quality site. There should be no pop-up ads. Nothing is more annoying than having to close 5 browser windows filled with ads. The style should be somewhat up to date and pleasant looking. Pages with black or dark colored backgrounds usually give me the feeling that the site wont be quality. The page should have easy, natural navigation. Should have recent and relevant content. If it's a page where I want to shop there should be contact info such as email, mailing address, phone numbers etc.
If I'm googling around for an answer to a question, it's usually easy to tell whether a site is useful, since I'm looking for a specific answer. Once I've gotten the answer to my question, I'll determine if the site looks like a good place to visit again. To do that, I'll go to the main index page, and poke around. Some bad qualities of sites I'd more than likely avoid: Poor navigation More ads than content No 'about' page (I can make exceptions with this one) No recent updates, or worse yet, no indication of when the content was published
Nice design as its the first thing you see, not just text graphics improve a site i think. Then content and thats all i care about. I dont mind pop ups, most of the high traffic and best sites have pop ups and of course they want to get rich same as us all.
For me it the content it self is the gauge of a quality site. How well it is organized and images as well.
For me, quality means very easy to use navigation, clean layout, original & current content, and minmal ads. I want to know what a site is about within... about 2-3 secs. If trying to figure what a site lasts longer than about 10secs.. I am usually gone. For ecommerce sites, I want to see the who, what, when, where's and how's very easily: who are these guys? what are they selling? where are they located, where do they ship to? when will I get something I buy? how do I buy it?
for me, the 3 things that affect my first impression most are: 1. color scheme 2. layout (including things like fonts, etc.) 3. good graphics