the web is not a place. it is a gigantic file retrieval system. but what good is any attempt to view a collection of files if they aren't listed? your guest knows that he/she is on your page right now, but where do they go from there? don't turn your site into a lame mystery. you should at least provide a sitemap page. here you can list links to all your other pages. flowery images stating 'back' and 'next' won't do the job. where the hell is 'next'? let your guests decide where they want to go, don't rob americans of their freedom of choice. you should also offer a navigation tool on every page. a sidebar is great, but always have a string of page links in plain text, making use of the 'alink' tag, so the viewer knows where he/she visited. this can be on the top or the bottom of every page, or both. to be unobtrusive, usually small text is used. designers recommened the same look on each page for an entire site. it does appear very professional, but it's not a rule. you don't have to be anal about making everything the same, but it's especially important that your navigation looks and works rather consistently throughout the site because it's what your visitors use to stay there. If it's confusing, they won't stick around. recently, the Coca-Cola™ website received nasty reviews, because despite the beautiful frills, it was almost impossible to navigate. needless to say, someone lost a contract, and someone gained one. easy site navigation is one of the very few concrete laws of website design. of course you shouldn't have a link from your page titled "Ode to my Mother" to another page named "My Nude Photos".... in short, your guest should be able to get TO every page from FROM every page. now why didn't i just say that in the first place? probably so i could have fun makin' yet another cool-lookin' page....