Examples of Bad Websites

Today's submitted bad website is basically a list of domains for sale by an enterprising individual who has presumably purchased them all.  As of today, there are 1522 for sale.  That represents a pretty good chunk of change, and assuming they need to be renewed annually that must get expensive.

So if you're looking for a domain, there are some odd ones here.  We're not sure what the significance of the number 1215225 is, but both the .com and .net versions are available.  If you're feeling dangerous, ipoisons.com is for sale - and if you'd like some hate mail, iracism.com is also listed. ???

We can't pick on 'design,' really, because if this website is doing its job - listing domains that are for sale - then it has served its purpose.  So it's not a true boogersite - it is really more of a curiousity.

Flash?  AGAIN?! Even your WEBSITE knows that's a fail.  Look, it says so right at the top.

We don't think this place is even open anymore, given that the "latest news" is from 2008.  For those keeping track, that's 10 years ago.

The only navigation is in the footer, there's no home link, contact info is an image, logo and 'header' disappears on sub-pages, and the brochures are all images which don't open in new windows.  Not much search-engine-friendly content here.

Sometimes a website submitted to us doesn't look "bad."  But it's not all about the look, is it?  Consider images, page titles, content...then you'll realize why Accu Blend is indeed a bad website.

Consider the home page.  Nearly all of it is image-based.  Let's try some of the navigation, shall we?  Site Map = blank.  Contact us = tiny bit of info that could have been on the home page in the footer.  Unless there's a contact form, or maybe a map with directions offered, there's no need for a separate contact page.  Tech Support?  Just some words and stock pictures, no 'tech' support.  New Products?  Blank.

Most page titles are Untitled. The Product pages nearly all use the same images, which is pretty useless.  Also, the link for sales/customer service at the bottom leads to a 404 'page not found.'  In all - BOOGERSITE!

It's old. It's busy. It's strange. Most of the links are broken, if indeed they ever worked.  A lot of them seem to be made up.  

When "In the News" has an article on Aretha Franklin releasing the album So Damn Happy - which happened in 2003 - it's obvious no one's maintaining this site.  Still, there are some active linked articles which serve as a kind of time capsule.  

There are too many design, navigation and usability sins to list.

When a website is made with Adobe PageMill, it's going to look dated.  When it's PageMill 3.0, that means it was created prior to the year 2000.  That makes today's bad website a true antique.  Technology aside, there's really no excuse for those colors.

Look - if you don't have the budget to hire a professional web developer, there are a lot of free tools out there for small companies that can be used to create a modern website that should suffice.  If you're NOT a small company, then you must allocate money in the budget for a professional website.  There's just no way around it these days.