In the 90s the internet, in many ways, felt like one giant chatroom. Often you’d arrive on a site only to be greeted by a big, bold “Welcome To My Site!” (exclamation point necessary). It makes sense when you think about it, as Google and search engines weren’t as widely used as they are today. Most people would get to websites by typing in a domain and hoping it took them to an actual site. Seeing a big, bright sign welcoming them to a page probably wouldn’t have been the worst. Today, using the first fold of your website to greet your guests and nothing else would be considered a waste of space. If you’re a content-focused website, you’ll probably want to be filling the top of your site with the top stories of the day. If you’re a service business, greeting your visitors isn’t altogether out of the question, but you need to get right to the point of what it is you do. If you don’t, it’ll probably affect your SEO. That said, sites like The Verge, and, until recently, The Outline have added some sort of greeting under their logos on the top fold. In this age of over-SEO optimization, I find it kind of charming.