white space and simplicity in web sites

After viewing websites for many years I have noticed what makes a good web site and what doesn't. Now that I have begun to create my own web sites it has increased my knowledge greatly. I now have a better eye for analyzing a web site and can tell exactly what would hold someones interest and what doesn't.

A big factor for this is making a web site fairly simple, including a good amount of white space, and not over cluttering a page. If the web site presents too much information and contains huge walls of text, people are less likely to stick around and read it. Often times a simple interface is the best option.

The best example I can think of is www.google.com. This highly successful website owes its popularity for its extreme simplicity and great use of white space. Google gets right down to the point on its main page and doesn't bombard the viewer with too much extraneous information. I keep this theme of simplicity in my own design.