If my site statistics are correct, a lot of people don't go beyond the home page. I'm trying to change that.

I can think of several reasons why you might just glance at the Freebooters home page and then exit. The only one I find marginally acceptable is that you are a regular visitor checking to see if I've added anything new since your last visit. The others, I need to work on, such as:

- It wasn't  what you were looking for, and it doesn't look interesting enough for you to take a quick look around anyway.

If you are about to exit without looking any further, could you spare me a moment to tell me why ? Maybe I can do something to make you change your mind next time.

I have a very slow Internet connection (19.2 Kbits/sec), and an ISP bottleneck that means I wouldn't be much better off with a faster link. This is one reason why most of the Freebooters pages are simple, fast-loading, and contain mostly text. However, you have enjoyed the photo-essays and the illustrated articles, so I'll create plenty more. After all, I am as much a photographer as a writer, and so are contributors like Keith Kellett.

I'll also make sure that first-time visitors can see that Freebooters has plenty of pictures - but I'll work hard to ensure the home page still loads quickly. I've given up on many a web site because I got bored with waiting for it to load.

I have  made one change that I think was overdue. I've removed the inactive grey links to things that don't exist. I hope that makes the site tighter and more professional.