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I was looking for the "First time here?" welcome banner that used to be on Stack Exchange pages, because I'm considering adding something similar to my own site and wanted to see examples. But I see that the banner has been removed, and I'm curious what led to the decision to remove it.

I don't see any mention of the change in the last few months of blog posts, or any other discussion of the change here on meta. I'd especially like to know if significant numbers of visitors complained about the banner, or if statistics showed it was not effective. What's the story?

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    I didn't even know this was gone... Oh well, you'll just have to earn a badge so that you can see the banner again!
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Apr 13, 2012 at 1:00

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See this answer by Nick Craver:

[...] we just removed that banner since the usage of it was incredibly low.

Basically, nobody paid it any attention or followed its link to the FAQ. Personally, I dislike these flashy top bars to the tune of "hello read all this please", "sign up to view links", and the likes.

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    That type of banner doesn't annoy me at all, in exactly the same way that static ads do not annoy me at all. My mind automatically filters out ads, welcome banners, and other pushy notifications before they even have a chance to enter my consciousness (or if a welcome banner does enter my consciousness, all I see is "Welcome to Acme [...skip this content and scroll down to get to the good stuff...]").
    – Ben Lee
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 23:37
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    @BenLee It's called Banner Blindness
    – Zelda
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 23:44
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    @BenBrocka, ah, thanks! I never knew the term for this. (Interesting study too!)
    – Ben Lee
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 23:46
  • Yeah, I imagine banner blindness and people not caring (loads of traffic comes from drive-by Googlers) contributed to this lack of usage.
    – a cat
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 23:51

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