Examples of Bad Websites
There are countless examples of embarrassing website designs and development out there. These are the latest examples we have discovered. For each site below we provide a brief analysis to assist you in avoiding the same pitfalls.
After looking at the websites and critiques below, please visit our free advice area.
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Academy of Truck Driving
As the callout on the landing page shouts - You Now Have Choices! And yes, you do. You can choose to hire a web design professional. And you should have.
A professional would have put a phone number on the landing page, and an address. An enrollment calendar for the current year (2020) instead of for 2018 would be helpful as well. Opening links in new windows or tabs instead of leaving the site would be good too. And real navigation buttons instead of neon jellybeans.
Shrug. If you want to become a professional truck driver, you have choices. Sound familiar? Maybe choose a school that has a professional web presence.
Hair of the Dog
Usually, the phrase 'hair of the dog' refers to drinking some of what gave you a hangover to help 'get over it'. In today's bad website's case - it may be the source of your hangover.
Busy, cluttered, style-less are all accurate adjectives. We also found broken links, blurred photos, and innocently clicking for a tour of the shop started an automatic, unwanted download. FOR SHAME!
A large callout to Lost and Found led to two poor pooches that have been missing since 2009. We can only hope (for once) that the site has simply not been updated in 11 years. Poor doggies, and poor website.
O'Douls'
Here sits a one-page placeholder, promising that a New Odoul's Web Site is COMING SOON. Early 2020. Psst...it's September 17th... Eh, (shrug) does it really matter?
The reason we stumbled upon this was due to a recent 'news' item that (incredibly) revealed that a certain actress allows her children to drink this beverage. 5 and 7 years old. Naturally, someone decided to go looking for the ABV.
That's when we found this odd website. FYI, one of the very few pieces of information on here is that there is reportedly 'less than .5%' alcohol in this beverage. So that makes it okay for kids? Maybe if you are an actress, it does.
Podquiz
Well...today's bad website looks pretty rough. It seems to be somewhat accidentally responsive, although the configuration is not ideal. Neither is the Subscribe to Podquiz button! IF you know what an rss feed is and how to implement it, you may have exactly what you need. If you were expecting instructions or a basic 'how to', you're out of luck.
Thankfully, there is merchandise for sale. Brown throw pillows, anyone? WAIT - how about a blue PodQuiz bath mat! It's not too early for Christmas shopping...
If you ARE going to try this, there's a link to print out an answer sheet for the weekly 20 question quiz. Good luck!
Atari - Best Electronics
Fact: It takes 40 'page downs' to get to the bottom of the landing page. No wonder, this site is like a time capsule.
There are gems such as:
"are you having problems saving data to your floppy disks?"
How to get the Atari Jaguar Tempest 2000 audio CD
See a Demo of an Atari BBS
and "Having trouble connecting up the your old Atari to your Cable Ready TV and think your Atari is Bad?"
This website is so quaint, it could be a masterpiece with some indexing and styling.
