Examples of Bad Websites

Close your eyes for a moment, and try to guess what sort of website a search engine would come up with when the search terms of Iowa, pencil, noodler, nib grinding, and pilot were entered.   If you said "a website about all facets of pen collecting and repair", you'd be correct!  But, be honest - you would not have guessed that. 

This website was submitted quite some time ago, but much worse websites have come in since.  Honestly, it seems nitpicky to mock this website because it IS updated often and does feature a lot of interesting information.  There are a few unavoidable issues with it, however, mostly due to the overwhelming amount of information on the site, which would benefit from categorization and archiving. For example: 
It takes 47 page-downs to get to the bottom of the About Us page.
There are 96 pages of "News" - all (incredibly) from this year.
And the winner - over 100 page-downs on the Advertisements page.
All in all, it's a fascinating site in need of a new look. 

You know what's odd about this website?  It's not obvious, and we'll let you think about it while you read what else is interesting; and not in a good way.   Let's start with the lack of excitement.  How about a photo, or even a drawing of some kind?   Without reading the landing page, you'd never know what this company does, or wants you, as a potential customer, to do.  There's a 'search' page that includes, for some reason, the ability to search the Internet using a variety of links to search engines (including altavista and excite - how quaint!) - it's as though they assume you don't have your own access to Google.

A 'navagation' choice of Travel Links brings up a really interesting list of airlines (most still in business) and United States Airport Codes...but why?   If Master S & P is such a tourist destination, you'd expect a ticket sales page as well.

Are you ready to learn what's odd?   Where is this company?  You can call them on an 800 number, and you can email them...but their location must be a secret.   Kind of like LeBron James' new Florida residence.

It's hard to see from the small thumbnail what makes this a boogersite - so you'll need to click on it to see what's all kinds of wrong with it.   The text in the middle is overlaying the menu!   We tried several browsers, and cannot find one that displays this site well.

If you're going to take the time and spend the money to promote your business online, please make sure your web developer knows how to present standard navigation for your site visitors to use.  The most important thing to display on your site is what, class?  HOW TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU.  That's right - your phone number, address, hours, etc.  None of those very important items are visible on this website.

We don't even want to know what those squirrels are doing in the upper left-hand corner.  That's where your logo or company name belongs, folks.

Huh.  Who would've thought that lime green with white text would be so hard to read?   Maybe it's just us non-beef industry folks, but does this look good to anyone?  There are also way too many menu options.  We trust that the purpose of this website is served by the articles posted in the middle, which are the only content that is easy to read. 

The ads down the right side offer some s-t-r-a-n-g-e items.  At the time of this posting, there was an ad for a 'replacement female sale'.  Quick, guys, you may be able to get a new woman at a discounted price!  (We think they mean cows, but still!)

If you manage to look a little further down the lime menu, you'll see that Web Sites and Web Design are two of the choices.  Please say it isn't so...we'd rather see the cattle industry stick to raising tasty hamburgers and leave the web design to us.

"Why settle for dull, faded, sun bleached horses?"  Why indeed?  While we take time to ponder this question, why has this business settled for an old, unattractive FrontPage website?  To promote products, a website that hopes to SELL some of them should be up-to-date (not only with technology) with quality high-resolution photos.

Another 'must' for any website is to make sure the navigation is functional.  The subpages of this site - also spectacularly under-designed - have non-functional "Home" links.  Some of the page titles need attention as well.   "What" and "Anderson" don't accurately describe the pages they title.  There are even some places on this site with 3 full page-downs of whitespace between content areas.  Font colors of purple, red, and blue on patterned wallpaper won't get you style points either.

We trust that the animals pictured on this site get more attention than the site itself...