Take www.carsguide.com.au for instance:
When browsing a picture gallery of a particular car, you can either click on the thumbnail (blue box) or link titled 'view all 9 images' (red box). Both these link to the same EXACT gallery page, except for the former the gallery page loads in the same browser tab and the latter loads in a new tab.
There are two things completely wrong and utterly annoying:
(1) Relevance - regardless of the image/link you're clicking on, you CANNOT view all nine images together.
(2) Browser Deadend - this 'gallery page' having a unique URL is a waste of resources because if the visitor wants to go back to the car profile page after browsing the pictures, hitting the browser's backspace button goes through every single image they've just browsed!
Moreover, the information presented in this gallery page, e.g. email enquiry form (see below), can easily be incorporated in the profile page - you don't need an entire new page for assurance that the visitor will engage with the advertiser via the email query form. In my opinion, there is no need for a new page, a flash-based pop-up gallery would've sufficed. Also, if carsguide really thinks email enquiry form should be present while visitors are browsing pictures, then it should be coded into the pop-up gallery. But the funny thing is that the page can be 'closed' (see below orange box), which returns the visitor back the profile page...and yet it's a page of its own...!?!
I have a strong feeling the reason for this gallery page is to increase exposure for their banner ads - in this case AAMI and RedCross (see above in lime green). More pages mean more 'impressions' (or the number of times an ad is viewed), and better metrics for the advertiser/agency...while the user/visitor gets frustrated and leaves the site for www.tradingpost.com.au and www.gumtree.com.au for simple, straight-to-the-point browsing!
Sadly, NDM's reach with carsguide having a decent marketshare in the online car sales directory business, more and more visitors are settling with less and advertisers are getting duped into hollow metrics.
But on the bright-side, maybe it's time for a third entrant to give carsguide and drive a dash for their money :)
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