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19 Things NOT To Do When Building a Website
josiahcole.com — I ’ve compiled a small list (or rant) of some very basic and fundamental rules that all webmasters must learn and respect when developing a website that needs to make actual money. This list can also be used by companies looking to hire a web development firm or to evaluate an already deployed website project.
josefresco- 1594 diggs
- digg it
- joenewbreed, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29overly broad, rather simplistic, and nothing in particular to write home about, but the overall gist of this rant is right on the money: "Don't make your visitors think"
dugg- skrillaz, on 10/12/2007, -10/+29The "rant" style of writing made me lose interest.
The statistics - "50% of American web surfers..", "10% of the (dropdown menus)" - are pretty much made up on the spot. Not that the author was going for credibility or anything.
Some of the points are just plain wrong.
The overall gist is close to being on the money, but the article isn't worth bookmarking and going back to. - CelebVoy, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3Anyone have a mirror? This site is powerful to knock down their server already
- unlimitedorb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3But what happened to the the late night parties and naked ladies...
Those have the tendency to distract me during web development. I have no clue why though =( - seanalltogether, on 10/12/2007, -11/+220 - Don'tt not make your navigation available on each content page.
- gldfshnpcklejar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23no < marquee > ever
- gldfshnpcklejar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Don't make your menu in each html file, and then only update the home page menu when things change.
- Ngai, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Site not working? Does it work for anyone else?
- kalleanka, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12920 - Don't host your website with a $2.99 web host if you plan to submit a store to Digg.com. You most likely will have your account suspended.
- razordancer, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3Edit - kalleanka beat me to it.
- unixer, on 10/12/2007, -18/+8Here is a tip. DON'T USE WORDPRESS!!
Ok for all of you caps police That was a true expression of yelling. - Frankie4Fingers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I don't agree with the firefox comments even though I use firefox. I build large applications (not just websites) and most companies still push one browser.
The drop down comments were messed up too. I realize most small websites don't really need a complex menu but any site with more then 30-40 links needs a good way to allow a user to go directly to all of those screens rather then going through 5 pages worth of landing pages. Direct access to pages is a way of making it easy for users and it lowers load on the application and web servers. - mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3http://www.duggmirror.com
Edit: Nevermind, Duggmirror didnt get it. - brendanc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21No... by all means, USE WORDPRESS. But make sure you use the WP-CACHE plugin!
WP-Cache website: http://mnm.uib.es/gallir/wp-cache-2/
It saves yourself cpu usage and usually prevents your site's server from crashing (if your host craps out anyway... it's probably time to switch hosts...) - airmann90, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6*DIGG DOWN*
- HaltingPoint, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Here's another tip...submit several stories from your own sites in hopes one of them gets Dugg...blogspam.
- ClassicJBC, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2oops
- essjay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2OK, I'll abuse the comment system then...
http://72.14.221.104/search?hs=sUq&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.josiahcole.com%2F2007%2F02%2F14%2Fa-webmasters-19-commandments%2F&btnG=Search
Enjoy, not that its a particularly good article.
- skrillaz, on 10/12/2007, -10/+29The "rant" style of writing made me lose interest.
- GaffleSnipe, on 10/12/2007, -10/+31This is a poorly written article, clearly not well thought out. He bashes and rants mostly. There are many different uses, and purposes for designing websites, and he only focuses on one. Money.
"DO NOT try to reinvent the website navigation. Put it on the top, the left, hell even the right will work but do not try to reinvent the way people interact with digital interfaces while trying to actually sell your product or service. People will get confused, then annoyed, then pissed, then gone."
Great tip. Let's NOT try to think outside of the box, because that would make the web a better place for all of us.- josefresco, on 10/12/2007, -7/+33Exactly, if you "think outside the box" in regards to an interface that is intended to make money, you will usually confuse the consumer. Save it for your art project.
- GaffleSnipe, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18Read my whole comment Joefresco. The title of the story doesn't include the word "eCommerce" at all. It's too focused for such a broad title. You just didn't get my point. I agree with him on an eCommerce site, but this doesn't apply to ALL websites.
- turpenine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+34nothing applies to all websites.
except the marquee thing. - Bokista, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1All I care about is thinking outside the bun.
- ricree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@turpenine
< blink > - frankerwa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11< blink >< marquee>< /blink >< /marquee>
FATALITY!
I cannot express the pain caused by the combination of these tags.
Usually accompanied by 46 or so mostly unrelated 'funny' animated GIFs. - sirdaz, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4@frankerwar:
you've got your tags mixed up...
I had to say it. Its a small tiny thing that really bites my nerve :)
- ChrisGrrr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6This is the first rant-list of its kind that I completely agree with. 100%.
It is geared toward commerce, not innovation - but I'm surprised to be in sync with every point... - FyreGoddess, on 10/12/2007, -3/+43FTA:
8. If you’re website does not work in Firefox, welcome to 2007 DUMBASS. Yes in most markets Firefox only commands at most a 10-15% market share, but for some sites it’s much higher (my other site Oomny.com has 80% Firefox users). Furthermore, if the morons you hired didn’t make your site and functionality compatible with Firefox they obviously have no idea what they’re doing, and aren’t up on their game. I have no idea why you would need a website, or functionality system that is so dependent on IE that it simply can’t work in Firefox, and frankly it doesn’t matter because there is no good reason. The lack of Firefox knowledge by a webmaster shows they aren’t of the Internet culture, and that’s a bad sign if you’re a business owner.
******
True enough, HOWEVER, it also still needs to work in IE. It really doesn't matter how far "evolved" you think you are in your online endeavors, you want to make it easy for people to see what you have to offer and not ensuring compatibility with IE pretty much cuts off a large portion of the population.
I can't even begin to count how many sites I've seen that have the "Works best in FF" button. Problem is, best or not, it should work - at all - in several different browsers.- josefresco, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14IE 6 (and now 7) support is a given.
- duzbin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I agree
everyone creating web sites should read http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/.
It is not difficult creating a website, using CSS, and AJAX, and still have it look good and work in a browser like lynx.
I do have a FF add on my blog [http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger2/4360/996761271866306/269/704899/gse_multipart24349.jpg], but thats 'cos I like the picture, and the browser. - bonexaw, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1My site honestly does work better in FF. It's a Web 2.0 site. Runs almost 75% faster in FF vs IE 6 or 7 (even with special IE optimizing code). Even better than Safari. FF's JavaScript engine is just hands down faster.
- fotoman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Just make the site W3C compliant and validated. Add an entry in the FAQ, that says if certain things don't work for you, try a standards compliant browser.
I've also seen websites that didn't work in Firefox/Konqueror/Mozilla, etc. Changed the browser identification and everything worked fine. WHO the hell denies access to a site based on the browser identification being IE?? That's a moron.
- stonr, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3YOU LOSE!!
- N3wtR0ckn13, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4"content is king", can't say it enuf
- coldfusion055, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33I think spelling is a rather big part of content there pal.
- Matrix_Prime, on 10/12/2007, -4/+101wow, dead after 32 digs. Maybe you should add #20 to that list, don't host a website on a ***** ***** server.
- CelebVoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The irony is there
- Drull, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Looks like he forgot to respond to your point with some sort of witty-trying-to-be-awesome remark. :((
- doshindude, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5duggmirror/google cache couldn't get it, and it's down. crap.
- spewn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17#1) Make sure your servers can handle the digg-effect :P
- novastar123, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3do most of these people run their websites off their home computers?
This site crashed before it even got 40 diggs. That is sad. - p2btech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This article was poorly written. I stopped reading about half the way through just because of the tone and some of the ignorance displayed in the writing. It was written too harsh for any beginner to take and utilize. It should have been written more of a nice friendly, stay away from this stuff kind of thing.
You clearly don't know how to write good tutorials. - greldenax, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3First Rule: Don't host your site on a server that can't handle volume traffic.
Say goodbye to your credibility Josiah. - MasterWizard, on 10/12/2007, -11/+8what i don't understand is: how people are still digging this if it's unaccessible...
- CelebVoy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Haha, wondering the same thing. They must want to keep the server down.
- Raluph, on 10/12/2007, -18/+8This is a social bookmarking site, right? So people BOOKMARK it for later, when the site might be back up.
- dallashigh, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19@Raluph:
http://www.digg.com/about
"Digg is a user driven social CONTENT website."
Not a single Digg page indicates that Digg is intended to be a social bookmarking site. Not one.
- Prysorra, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5It's amazing that people digg things they CANT read.....
32 to 54? (As I post this)- mildsoup, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19They probably digg it so when it's up again and off the frontpage, they can come back and read it.
- soogy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5@mildsoup
Somehow I doubt it. - dggeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's unfortunate people use it that way. It could be the most worthless story ever, but it's going to get a lot of diggs because of the title.
I personally use the del.icio.us add-on for Firefox.
- iconoclast7, on 10/12/2007, -5/+41 thing not to do when building a website- dont make it suck so much that it goes down after 38 diggs
- Aggort, on 10/12/2007, -26/+3http://www.duggmirror.com
- kingace, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7Did you even check to see if it got mirrored before posting that link?
- jayt684, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"I ’ve compiled a small list (or rant) of some very basic and fundamental rules that all webmasters must learn and respect when developing a website that needs to make actual money."
As opposed to what, fake money? - directandy, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2wow this is only the BILLIONTH time someone has posted this!!!!
dugg down for OLD- directandy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1great. my reply for dont click it shows up here. wtf
- tuxidomasx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5how bout somebody post them all
- mattcampbell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1420. dont' skimp on the bandwidth.
- ExtremeRyno, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5Seriously, people...There are a million of these lists floating around. Do we really need to see ANOTHER blog entry about it? Basically they all say the same thing: "Use blogware or your page is teh suck." ***** off and learn some HTML rather than bitch about the people that try.
On a side note, I found I rather enjoy blogware because writing html in notepad just isn't as fun as it was 13 years ago.- tagawa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Ah, the old 1994 reminiscences. Yes, that was a great year for HTML. Happy times.
- Wrathernaut, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I don't mind notepad... it's just that the single undo level sucks.
- Frankie4Fingers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Using notepad is a waste of time if you write any code. Get a real editor and write complex code like a champion.
- burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4At least use Notepad2... at most, emacs :)
- tagawa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Notepad++ FTW
- MasterQ, on 10/12/2007, -29/+5http://www.duggmirror.com
- IpHa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Why do people keep posting duggmirror links without checking it first?
- Keloran, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2because people are morons, they also dont know that there (dont know if it still applys) a problem with duggmirror if you posted a comment with its url it craps out
- Pingspike, on 10/12/2007, -5/+420: host a story like this on a server/host that folds under a digg-hit.
I cant even read the damn story.. *sigh* - mikehill33, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1721: don't EVER use the word "webmaster" as an indicator of knowledge.
This nomenclature went out of style in 2000.- tagawa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Yes, webmistress is much better.
- ColinCampbell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Also, Dude, webmaster is not the preferred nomenclature, web developer, please.
/biglebowski
- EV1L, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You SHOULD NOT be giving advice on how to build a website
- superpixel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14someone's host is getting a nasty email right now... let's picture it through the power of imagination, shall we?
"Dear SuckyHosting.foo:
I spent several moments whipping up a killah post about how to totally rock the wibshizzle, and I had planned for month on how this was my ticket to the BIG time. Then ur crappy hosting service shut me down after only a couple of diggs. WTF? You have cost me money!
I tried calling your help line, but got only voicemail. Your site says 24/7 tech support, so what gives?"
And tomorrow morning, some server monkey is going to try and figure out what in the hell a "digg" is... (because yes, there are still people, even in tech, who haven't heard of digg) - Boofster, on 10/12/2007, -19/+1http://www.duggmirror.com/
- binaryspiral, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Hosted on http://www.inetu.net/ -
His MySQL server is hammered into oblivion. I'm going to guess he's not running WP-Cache.
Sucker - it's the *first* thing you do when you build a wordpress blog.
Add that to your list - I'm doing better than you! - adame, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4edit
- Onwlyix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Dallashigh:
Doesn't mean you can't freakin save it for later like he said. Digg it and have it in your recent diggs, jesus. - rowlodge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2you forgot number 20 , dont tell digg unless youve got one bigass server to handle all the hits.
- dcamp7gh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I was thinkin the same thing, but prob should be higher and bump down the others...
- skrillaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That should be #1.
- carolinaws, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8< marquee > ? That's nothing. Let's not forget < blink > !
- rwallen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I believe you should code your sites to work in everything. I always test in ie, firefox, opera, and safari. ie7 now too acts differently than 6 so 1 more thing to test it in. It's a little more work involved but if it isn't perfect you shouldn't be charging for your work.
- sensibledriver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's nice to see a PA getting their feet wet. Welcome to the real world of UI, kid.
;) - rmones, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4another thing to NOT do? ...buy a ***** host.
page down after a puny 371 diggs.
*edit* ok, i just noticed about 5 people before me made that same joke, sry- josefresco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2371 Diggs, but a few other major sites ran with it before Digg. Run a server and learn something about social PR before you start commenting on sites going down with a "measly" 371 diggs.
- goingmobile, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2skimp on ***** bandwidth
- kylej608, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1haha what a fag, learn how to get a good host. atleast now no one is wasting their time reading that ***** article
- pezholio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You're a winner!
- Just1nD, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0who else thought "19 things" seemed more 'clickable' than "top 10" or "top 25"
edit: by clickable i mean hmmm interesting- josefresco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2ha, nice
- bscene, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Check out the post he makes here on his other blog titled "High traffic and no website to be seen…."
http://oomny.com/2007/02/15/high-traffic-and-no-website-to-be-seen.html
"Then the visits must have spiked because my blog went DOWN! It’s not a great thing to have happen, especially when your blog is hosted on a a work server and it makes all the other hosting clients website’s go down too….Very bad."
Jose's note to self - Do as I say, not as I do
too funny!! - Hensworth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ahaha this guy has no credibilty giving out tips to about how not to design a site.
- LucianSolaris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3buried as lame for wordpress
- imacsandra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ouch -- his site was dugg to death!
- ZenMasterJG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6How about this one:
Never, ever, ever, ever make your navigation in Flash! For the love of all thats holy, no more flash navigation!
(I'd say never use flash at all, full stop. But thats a personal thing.)
Flash navigation is, IMHO, the single worst thing you can do to destroy your web site's usability.
That, and it violates damn near everything in the W3C's WAI guidelines.
Which brings up another good one:
*READ* the WAI guidelines. - Ramzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Goddamn it, how many hours does the site have to be down before it comes back up? I bookmarked this page at work 9 hours ago, and the damned website is still down.
- vector66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Really , it's time for heavy duty hosting. That should be # 23 or something. BTW where's the mirrow?
- sirber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Not Found
The requested URL /2007/02/14/a-webmasters-19-commandments/ was not found on this server.
-
#20: Be sure you upload your files first!- everling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Better yet, "#20: You can't have an e-Commerce site without a site!"
"This is the Plesk™ default page
If you see this page it means:
1) hosting for this domain is not configured
or
2) there's no such domain registered in Plesk.
For more information please contact Administrator."
- http://www.josiahcole.com/
- everling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Better yet, "#20: You can't have an e-Commerce site without a site!"
- Loyal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Maybe they should consider paying their subscription fees. It might get more interesting!
- Deegraww, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Well since I get the message "The page cannot be found" I would the the first thing to do is make sure all my links work... but that's just me.
- thespottedelf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2diggers crashed it
- roberto_deneero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7-1 for no working site
-1 for lame rant
-1 for repetitive list just like 1000 others on the net
-1 for the hell of it- skankyBacon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How do you know if it's lame or repetitive if you can't access it?
-
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