Gap goes back online, sort of

It's back-to-school season again, but Gap is cutting some classes.

On Aug. 24, the San Francisco-based clothing giant shut down the Web sites of store brands Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy for an overhaul that would add new features. It reopened the Banana Republic site on Aug. 26, but the company is still throttling traffic at the sites of Old Navy, which was opened to select numbers of customers on Aug. 29, and Gap, which started accepting orders from select customers on Sept. 1.

The traffic is being temporarily throttled on the Old Navy and Gap sites so that the company can closely monitor the site and study traffic, a company representative said. The number of visitors that can buy items on the site was not released.

The somewhat unusual site outages were preceded by a slight drop in revenue due to lower traffic. On Sept. 1, the San Francisco-based company said revenue for the four weeks ending Aug. 27 came to $1.17 billion, a 5 percent decrease from the same period the year before.

It is unclear what impact the unusual Web site outage had on revenue. Typically, Web sites try to remodel their structure while keeping them up.

With the new structure, shoppers can put things into an online shopping bag without leaving the browser page. The Quick Look feature also makes it easier to get product views and information, according to the company's Web site.

Another feature, called Outfitting, lets consumers get style tips and help on putting together an outfit.