20 Ways To Make Your Website Crap
Hello everyone, many website owners make schoolboy errors, that makes their website, well, crap. These errors can cause an annoyance to a large percentage of visitors, and can actually drive traffic away. If you avoid all the reasons I have listed below, you are sure to have an outstanding annoying free website!
Just remember value. If you provide that on your website, your visitors will keep coming back time and time again for more.
Use A Free Hosting Company
If you use a free hosting company, you may often get a huge ad on top of your website, before your content actually starts. This can put people off, and can look ugly. Also you wont have a unique url, it will be something like yoursite.freewebspace.com. I’m not saying that sites like freewebs and tripod are crap, it’s a great place to start of, just you cant really look professional hosted on a free service like that. Instead, I would strongly recommend to use a reliable shared hosting company like Host Gator.
Have No Content Above The Fold
Some websites have huge headers, and if visitors want to find content, they have to scroll really far down the page to find any content.
Have A Splash Page
Having a page before your actual website, that says click here to enter, with loads of heavy images can take a long time to load for people with a slow Internet connection, and can look very bad (unless you are a pro designer). You are actually making it harder for people to access your website. Some splash pages can look awesome, like this one below, but it can still be an annoyance to your website visitors. I would generally avoid them.
Create Your Website Just With Flash
Flash websites can sometimes be awesome, but most of them with heavy content can take a long time to load, even on a broadband connection. Plus search engines wont be able to index each individual page on your site, because it’s all flash. S.E.O will suck, and you will have to do some heavy manual promotion.
Not Check Your Website For Cross Browser Compatibility
If you want your website to be accessible by everyone, then it needs to be viewable by most if not all browsers, or at least latest browsers.
Have Music Playing On Your Website
Websites that automatically play music when loaded are very annoying. Sometimes people can’t find the pause of stop button, and it can be very annoying and off putting.
Opt In For A Second Best Domain
I have nothing wrong with .net or .biz, but why opt for second best domain? When you know you really want that .com!
Link To Non Existing Pages
People always link to stuff that doesn’t always exist. This can be very annoying for the end user, especially if they have been searching for a long time for something, and then your linking to something that’s not actually there.
Lock Copy And Pasting
Websites which have a lock on, that prevents people from right clicking can be very annoying. I know they are just trying to stop people nabbing their content, but even still *cough* print screen *cough*.
Build Your Website Out Of Tables
Building your website out of tables is a very bad move these days. XHTML and CSS is what you should be using. I have nothing against tables, and you should still use them within your site if needs be, just don’t have your whole site based around tables.
Have Annoying Pop-Ups
Websites that have pop-ups every time you visit them can be very off putting, and most of all very annoying. Don’t do it, even if you are getting paid a measly 1 cent per pop-up. It will put your visitors off!
Slow Loading Pages
Pages that contain hundreds of intense images can often crash people’s browsers, or just slow down their computer, and painfully take a long time to load.
Having A Counter On Your Website
Displaying a free counter on your website, can look very bad. You shouldn’t be showing off how many hits you get, that’s what sites like Alexa and compete are for. Things you should be showing off are your RSS Subscriber count and your Twitter Followers.
Stupid Repeating Background Images
Websites that use the same small background image that repeats itself both horizontally and vertically are generally crap. For example, a Pokemon image repeating itself all over your screen. Very annoying!
Use A Bad Color Palette
It can be very bad to use a color palette on your website, where all the colors clash. A great place to find color palettes is ColorLovers or ColorSchemer.
Use Stupid Text Effects
Using text effects that you get off these free online text generators can make your website look very tacky, not ‘cool’ as they make out it will look. My advice, use photoshop for your text effects.
Being Inconsistent
Using all different types of fonts across your website is inconsistent. If you use one font for your paragraphs and one font for your headers, then you should be safe. The same goes for text size, colors, etc.
Having To Scroll Horizontally Across Websites
Don’t you hate it when websites are too large for your screen? I’m not taking about the odd few pixels, like double if not triple your screen width. Websites should generally be no more than 1000px wide, 900 to be safe.
Using Rubbish Alternative Software
Say for instance you were building a big forum website, and you wanted it to achieve and have a thriving community of active members. But you couldn’t afford vBulletin or Invision Power Board, so you settled for phpBB (second best). It’s free for a reason. (phpBB is a very good forum software for beginners, but it just cant compete with the big boys).
Also some comments say I’m implying that WordPress is crap, but WordPress isn’t second best, it’s the best.
Animated Gif’s And General Rubbish
Basic website clutter can just make a website crap. Unnecessary junk that fills web pages, just to have content is very bad. A great example of this is the worst website in the world. Click on the image below to be amazed!
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Xm (2 years ago)
this was really really helpful, i’m in my first year of multimedia at college and we are making websites and i have made atleast three of these mistakes. thanks for the tips.
govindaraj (2 years ago)
really its awesome. thanks
Daniel (2 years ago)
Hi,
You don’t always have to be consistent, sometimes consistency is boring.
tar,
Will (2 years ago)
Good article however phpBB is not “rubbish alternative software”, a lot of people don’t like vbulletin.
Bec (2 years ago)
Oh My God. I almost had a fit when I saw that website. Yuck.
This is really helpful
Cheers
Maggi Blue (2 years ago)
Funny, the ads displayed on this post seem to indicate that all these rules are null when there is money to be made.
Greg (2 years ago)
Bringing back the Marquee and Blink tags just what we’ve been missing.
neat design (2 years ago)
I think at some point or another we have all been guilty of a number of these sins.
But don’t put flash down just yet there are still some cracking flash only websites out there which could only be created in flash.
neat design.
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Lauren (2 years ago)
Great post. I unfortunately have been having issues w/ the hosting company and registrar for my domain so I’m a blogspot so I am guilty of the free domain thing. But I agree w/ all your point, thanks especially for the Color Schemer link, had not heard of this one.
jobo (2 years ago)
All very good points. The only problem is when the client wants some crappy stuff on his website and you can’t get him to change his mind!
Shama Kern (2 years ago)
I just came across your various posts and I really like them. You don’t mince words, you point out many mistakes that I have made, and I feel it will get me on track with my blog.
Web Designers In Houston (2 years ago)
A valid W3C web site is a good business investment also.
Jewels (2 years ago)
Roared with laughter at the world worst website. The music just did it! Fantastic info and tips. Just starting out myself and I am learning every day from your website. Thank you a million times over!!!
Vince Golangco (2 years ago)
Ahhhh, great checklist to make sure my site is somewhat decent…. Great list and very practical!
Larry McCauley (2 years ago)
Re flash and seo: SWFAddress and SWFObject. SWFAddress makes it possible for google to index every page of the site, and SWFObject offers the bots alternate html content to index whilst setting up a switch that seamlessly directs users into your flash site.
Basically it’s Javascript to the rescue
The default (and other) html publish settings in Flash are a total disgrace. This is where I think so much of the bad rep for flash sites comes from. Anyone just blindly publishing in flash will produce a site that may look and act brilliantly but be impossible to SEO.
But a good and valuable checklist!
Loreauville Phil (2 years ago)
I have to agree with what a couple of posters have said already, that this “Checklist” is more a matter of opinion than facts. I do agree with the majority of what’s stated. But I think some of it is more a lack of professionalism than anything else.
I do have mixed feelings about the Free Web Hosting. My experiences with free web hosts have proven to me that [most] of them are worth are worth every penny you pay, but for some people and circumstances, they are perfect.
And in my opinion the biggest “crap-alert” of a website is lack of usable content.
Tom (2 years ago)
Nice. Gave me a smile!
Elias (2 years ago)
Stupid Repeating Background Images… seriously, this depends on the image!
Kathleen (2 years ago)
Nice list to keep newbies to the website world heading in the right direction – it’s often the basics which are missed from website design. Keep it simple always works best for me.
Ben Nuttall (2 years ago)
Everything I live by! Seriously all very good points.
…except – you missed ‘Use frames’!
(and I don’t see what’s wrong with phpBB)
Azad Shaikh (2 years ago)
thanks for helpful points. lol.
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Ashby (1 year ago)
hahahaha sorry i disagree with only one point you made:
“WordPress isnt second best, its the best.”
Im a joomla guy so typically I have to 100% disagree and say sorry to disappoint you but wordpress is second best to joomla.
Mike (1 year ago)
Wow. I almost forgot some people still do these things. I actually saw a business in my area had a website with an ANIMATED BACKGROUND, music playing, no structure (imagine dropping a bunch of post it notes, photos, receipts and other junk on the table, that’s what this site looked like).
At the same time, I think back and in my more novice days I used to do some of these things!
Nabeel (1 year ago)
funny but really important information!
Paul (1 year ago)
So true! Great Article!
mikeo (1 year ago)
if your site resembles geocities or myspace it needs help – or a quick death.
nothing i mean nothing makes me leave a site faster than background music. period.
oh and animated GIFs
.mike
Luis (1 year ago)
Some of ur point are just ur opinion!!!!!
I agree with Rob Brideson…
disagree in this point of view: Have A Splash Page
There some clients thay i know and some that i have!!!! that i do temporarly put a enter page to promote a specific thing….
Have A Splash Page its not bad, and come on ur saying that it could take long time to load or heavy images…. blah blah!!!
lets say that 80 % of what u wrote was good!!!!!
Susana (1 year ago)
You should include in your list those posts that begin with adds… they look like… “You can read this post but… I want/need money”
Too many adds are awful, trying to click on such websites is like walking trough a mined field.
I personally think that this post is supposed to be written from the user perspective (in that case it would be good to know your sources), otherwise it is just insulting those companies/groups/people who has that kind of websites and that is not good for our website development business. An orientative approach would be better if that is the case.
Eric (1 year ago)
It’s amazing how many sites don’t adhere to this common sense guidelines. Great post!
arveerella (1 year ago)
nice post! It’s true we really want the .com! ?
Sandy (1 year ago)
Why did you go to all that trouble to create a mythical worst website?
The real mcCoy exists here: http://www.backgammon-biba.co.uk/
… and note that the only real text is all in Comic Sans
Jez (1 year ago)
Top tips!
Deepesh Chetariyil (1 year ago)
Awesome tips, WDD. It sure is darn truth straight on anybody’s face. People always want a .com domain no matter what their other interests are. I mean, i wanted to, but lets just say i had my reasons *cough* money *cough*
Dennis Suitters (1 year ago)
Word Press is utter rubbish and is prone to SQL Injection. period.
Tonym (1 year ago)
Putting contact info (and sometimes more) in an image to stop people making easy use of it! Great post, thanks.
Marco (1 year ago)
‘Have Annoying Pop-Ups’
That’s a good one
Christian (1 year ago)
How ironic, the “world’s worst website” crashed my browser!
Very nice list as well.
I am still a student and this is a big help
Speider Schneider (10 months ago)
Any site without a prancing glitter unicorn, farting rainbows, is just…dead to me!
Carlos Viloria (10 months ago)
Create Your Website Just With Flash
this is not entirely true, there are pages in flash pages weighing less than throw in HTML / CSS or PHP.
The title should be: If your site is just flash, and weighs more than 200k … is a crap
if you make a page in Flash please do it well!!!
jess (4 months ago)
my site (www.jmagsgraphics.com) is made entirely in flash but you would never know. no hangups here
Dtg (8 months ago)
Considering a link to this article for our “Web” tidbits — but says “annoying pop-ups” … and then, guess what? Yup. Pop-ups.
Web Design (8 months ago)
“Annoying pop-ups” vs a javascript overlay (not a pop-up) which asks you to subscribe to receive useful information – these 2 are very different : )
Sarah (6 months ago)
Hate splash pages. They’re generally unclear, text-heavy, and (for a lot of people) might be confused as the ONLY page of the site because there is no clear way to get to the actual site. Great list!
Jess (4 months ago)
haha I like how you said you can just do a screen shot of locked images. Duhh, isn’t that what we all do anyways?! and another good website for color palettes is http://kuler.adobe.com/
When I was in school, I saw design students who had the world’s worst concepts of putting colors together. THey could not be saved if a paint bucket hit them in the face.
Mohawk Kellye (3 months ago)
It’s nice to see that a year later now that most of these sites have actually updated their site for the better. You can see a before and after scenario, although I would’ve gotten a good laugh at some of the bad examples if they still existed.
Storage Sydney (2 months ago)
Making the website crap? At first, I am really curious why these things are to be done. But with the explanation of Mr. Rob and getting the essence of these 20 ways, I finally found out why.
SANA (3 weeks ago)
thnx for sharing hope these 20 tips help me !