I’m especially curious about the vast amount of information in the footer which requires considerable scroll. Is that there mostly for SEO purposes or does it really increase stickiness? How does it compare to having similar information in the sidebars?

But it looks a little bit like a site of a faceless company or a nonserious SEO firm. And futher more it reminds me of TechCrunch – ‘couse of the 125×125 ads.

… overall it’s a nice style but a bit to professional ;-)

I love the new design of your blog. You have been a great help to me in learning how to become a better blogger.

Thanks for the post about decluttering your blog. I need to do this real soon!

God Bless You!

Andrea proudly wears size 11 shoes. http://www.yourfeetmakeyouunique.com is designed for women who love and wear plus-size shoes.

The placement of the extended footer links was a good idea. I’ve read the comments and critiques questioning the footer and bemoaning the loss of the squares previously at the top, but I think that loss was offset nicely by the ‘best of’ for beginners being prominently displayed. Nothing in the footer is really crucial so it makes sense to house the chosen content there. On the other hand, the search, subscribe, and recent posts are all located [mostly] above the fold, for all to see right away. If someone can’t figure out how to scroll down for the the secondary content, well, words fail me.

The portal-like idea is a good one, and I have a feeling we’ll see more and more bloggers taking this approach with their home pages. Particularly for a blog as mature and content-heavy as ProBlogger, it’s a solid choice, though it may take some time for readers to acclimate.

My one complaint – the far left sidebar could be cinched up a bit more in the width, as someone said. It would give more weight to the main content, and a little breathing room.

In my ever so humble opinion, the entire site is much more inviting now, and the content more distinguishable… Job well done Darren and Ben. :)

I do like it, it’s very readable… but I think your old design, colors and branding were very recognizable. Perhaps a little less clean, less styled… but distinctive nonetheless. Maybe it’ll grow on me?

It looks a little odd… hehe :)

Anyway, the image of the blog that you have put here is appealing compared to your earlier version, where the earlier had a spilled-vomit design. (Sorry for that harsh criticism).

Front Page:
- Over the past few days .. I’ve been appreciating what Ben refers as the “DOM scripting” for the archives, and I’ve actually been able to surf the archives without having to think of a search term. I would expand the links to at least 50 in the older categories – as you probably have them ..
- if possible, it would be a great utility source if there was a 5th tab .. of the group efforts and writing projects (community efforts) … and, for the people out there who like to link back to Problogger, the entire “Best of Problogger” section could be replicated to it’s own page or unique URL.
- I’d switch the left column with the center column. Because you have to scroll down the left side, your eyes tend to just scan over directly to the slide bar and the right and miss the center altogether.

SinglePage:
- I think it’s wasted space to put the commentor’s name to the left of the comment, or at least it hurts the eyes to scroll left/right/left/right to read comments and the person’s name who wrote the comments .. my eyes are trained to scroll down, not sideways. It’s never good to have a screen that scrolls right/left .. there’s a reason – and it’s the same with the comments.
- I agree with everyone who suggested that the font size and type just isn’t right here .. it’s too small and spread out and tires you to read even an average post. If you used the same type of font and spacing as other b5media templates .. it would kind of tie in with the rest of the network, even though it is different on the front page and the footer.
- The “Problogger Sponsors” six 125×125 ads are vertical and misaligned down the page in a semi-left adjusted format on my IE v7.0.5730.11 browser

Archives:
- It’s missing a step. The posts for the month. You go from month to the posts, yet only 9 posts showed up. How do I know which post to read? I have to scroll down to the bottom, then through previous pages for that month to hope to find something. I would place a complete list of all posts in the month at the top before it shows the 2-paragraph teaser.

Comments:
- I was and am sad to see no “live preview” or ability to preview to see how bad a typist I am, or what lousy grammar I have. nudge,nudge,say no more.

Overall:
- Ultimately (i.m.h.o.) when the content is good the design doesn’t matter .. and people will get used to this design. As long as I get to a the permalink/single page when I click on the post titles in my Bloglines .. then I really have to ask myself .. “how does it affect me?” The answer is – it doesn’t.

Take care // HART

http://www.fontseek.com/fonts/eurostile.htm

Your buddy,
David

Best of luck with the new house!