---
title: Good entry point
---

A **good entry point** to a website or wiki is a page that is understandable
and useful to someone coming from outside the site (e.g. from a search engine
or external website). In other words, a good entry point does not depend on
content that is on other pages on the website for comprehension.

{% include toc.md %}

## History

I am taking the idea of a good entry point from the
[WikiWikiWeb](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FrontPage) page ["Good Entry
Point"](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GoodEntryPoint):

> [WardsWiki](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardsWiki) consists of many thousands
> of pages, each almost equally important.
> Even the [FrontPage](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FrontPage)
> isn't *that* special. As a
> result people stumble into this site at some random point, presumably
> something relevant to a Web search. These visitors don't initially have
> the context provided by the page's neighbors.
>
> Turning this on its head, it becomes a problem for those wishing to
> create a [ValuablePage](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ValuablePage) for a broad
> section of the reading population.
>
> The often-quoted [WardCunningham](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardCunningham)
> said on
> [WikiIsNotaDictionary](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiIsNotaDictionary),
>
> > \[...] Ask yourself: if the page you cite were to be created, would
> > it serve Wiki well as a point of entry in this web of knowledge?

In ["The goal of subject
wikis"](http://blog.subwiki.org/2009/02/02/the-goal-of-subject-wikis/), Vipul
Naik writes:

> A principle that is important and not obvious is *genericity*: individual
> subject wiki pages should largely make sense as independent entry points into
> the wiki, so that people coming from outside can go straight there. While
> they should link to other subject wiki entries, they should not be dependent
> on them in a strong sense. Most important, there should be no *forced
> sequencing* of the entries as in a textbook, where future entries depend on
> earlier ones.

## Advantages

- Doesn't waste time for the reader, who can just get the information they want
  without going through many other pages
- No forced sequencing
- Leads to higher quality pages, since one must put more effort into making
  them comprehensible (?)
- Easier exporting of the site. In other words, in the future I might want to
  split up the site by e.g. subject, and having roughly independent
  pages means I don't have to worry about dependency issues.
- Since a lot of web traffic now comes from social media, it's important to
  make pages "share-friendly", i.e. be useful to people coming in from e.g.
  Facebook shares, even if they're not familiar with your site. (This is
  essentially the same point as in the case of search traffic. In both cases,
  you should just assume that most people aren't familiar with your site. One
  the other hand some sites use this "foreignness" well, as in the case of e.g.
  everything2 or AutoAdmit, which have a different "feel" to the site than most
  sites, which (for me) makes them more interesting.)

## Disadvantages

- Inability to have "sequences" of pages?
- Duplication of content, like introductions?

## Implementation

- Adding metadata to pages can guide new readers.
- The first paragraph of a page can be a Wikipedia-style introduction, with
  bolded keyword and general introduction to the topic. This allows readers to
  quickly tell if the page they're reading is something they want to be reading
  (sort of like how abstracts function in academic papers).

## See also

- [Jargon]({% link jargon.md %})