Happy Howlidays, Dogsters!
We’ve been working on getting ready for some pawesome changes to Dogster, and we’re at the point where we can start telling you what those changes will be. We’re expecting to debut these improvements in the second half of January.
The biggest change is that we will be updating the look of our pages’ headers, footers, and background images. One enhancement we think everyone will like is that we’ll be removing the top advertising banner spot altogether as part of our parent company, SAY Media’s, Clean Campaign. Yes, we’re really going to have fewer ads on every page!
Something we think is important for pet and group page customizers to know is that our new top navigation links will have drop-down menus for each section, as the Community tab does. This means that the current button customizations won’t work identically. BUT we are 100 percent committed to supporting page customization, and we will be working VERY CLOSELY with Pawsome Pages during this rollout to ensure that all of your customizations continue to look and work exactly as they did.
We’ll also be changing the content on the main site homepage (though the Community homepage content will stay the same) as well as our informational pages such as News, Puppies, Health & Care, Food, and Behavior & Training. We’re doing this because we’re building a new publishing tool for our blog and article content that will integrate much better into our sites than our current options. This does mean that the blogs will be changing slightly, mainly so we can serve them all at www.dogster.com and integrate our great posts with the rest of the site.
We’re sure some community members may be a little concerned or unsettled, but please rest assured that besides the new headers, footers, and top navigation page links, there will be NO changes to the Community areas. Pet Pages, Groups, Forums, Diaries, Gift Giving, Answers, Adoption, Local, and the Community homepage will all stay exactly as they are now.
We also want to reiterate that we’ll be working closely with a select group of Dogster Community members to thoroughly test all areas of the site. We will go to great lengths to make sure that these changes do not affect customized Pet Pages and Groups.
As we get more specific information on the site upgrade, we’ll post updates and share screen shots, launch dates, and places to discuss the changes, so do check back.
Much woof,
Your Friends at Dogster HQ
Pictured above: Dogster Dutchie McBarkis-Lane at a construction site! (She is a girl!)
