How NOT to design a website.

[Menard]

Do the terms sporadic, random, or even chaotic come to mind as terms that should not be associated with web design?

(yeah...I heard that )


I originally put up a page on http://5g8.net as a domain holder, with smileys that could be hotlinked from it.

Just for curiosity, I had placed a shoutbox on that single page. The shoutbox, though, took up more resources than the page itself, so I added a forum using a lightweight script I liked; primarily as a feedback forum.

I was looking into arcade scripts and wanted to try one out, so I put up an arcade on the, now site rather than page, using that script and just populating it with a few games.


The forum itself was just to be a general discussion forum, and nothing more. There's not much activity on it, but it has simply turned into more of a miscellaneous mix of forums that any central theme; I just add a forum to it, rather than trying to start a separate forum. It basically has a site forum, Indy's feedback forum (I'll explain later), the funhouse forum (I may dump that), a webmasters forum, an adult forum, and a rants forum.


Since I mentioned Indy, going to the site, aside from the pic of Barack Obama, you will be greeted with a strange pic of a man (most of his head) wearing a fedora with an odd hole in the front of it; with a cartoon like balloon caption added. This started as a joke when I came across an eBay auction of his where I found that picture that was just begging for a caption. I started with promoting the auction, and then turning it into a daily (okay, when I think of it) 'thought of the day'.


No, there was no theme, intention, or really any purpose behind the design or the site. It is just a collection of miscellaneous that has been added from one page to where it is now. There is more up there than what is linked as I am working to make it even more miscellaneous by adding a garage section; if it weren't miscellaneous enough, now I'm adding a section where I throw anything at random. What's going to be in the garage? Uh...no telling what may end up there. Wallpaper collections, webmaster downloads, linkable games, and so forth and so on.


There are a myriad of ways to design a website well...

...this ain't one of them.


The only constant throughout the website is the header.

And...it's only costing me one dollar a month to host this beast.

[Menard]

Updates to 'how not to design a site'.


Indy's Thought of the Day has been removed from the front page just simply because I was running out of ideas for it.

Indy's hat was won in an auction by one of the members of the forum where he is a regular (not my forum). The idea they have developed is to send the hat around to different members of the forum and have them take pictures of it, either them wearing it or in front of landmarks.

The idea may result in a blog on my site about the passing of the hat between the different members; that is depending on how much interest seems to develop in the idea and the blog.


I have added a health forum to the forums, as well an 'add your link' forum at the top of the forums to at least try to grab occasional visitors and get them to post something to add to the content.


The Alexa ranking of the site is at around 522,000 and has been progressively growing. I am promoting the site, for once, and adding to a very few topsites.


In addition to the potential blog, or blogs, for the site, I am considering taking the news feed off of the front page and putting it, with other news feeds and comics, on a separate page called the 'newspaper'. I am going to also make a button for the arcade, which has only been accessible through the funhouse, and put it in the header.

[Andy]

Hmm, your Alexa rank is good. Maybe there is no right or wrong way to build a site? Thought of the day ...

[Menard]

Hmm, your Alexa rank is good. Maybe there is no right or wrong way to build a site? Thought of the day ...

Interesting.

I was thinking of starting a thread about the imbalance of the Alexa ranking.

My site broke 500,000 on Alexa, yet it currently only gets an average of 28 unique visitors a day.

On some arcade forums, I have seen posts from some arcade webmasters claiming 1000 UV a day, yet their Alexa ranking has not broken 1,000,000 and in some cases 2,000,000.

It seems like webmaster forums are well ranked in Alexa, but don't have the activity to suggest such a ranking.

My assumption, may be wrong, is that there is a greater ratio of Alexa toolbar users who are webmasters than not and that is what ranks sites frequented by more webmasters higher than sites which may well have more traffic.

Of course, I have been trying to play that to my advantage by using my own smileys on webmaster forums. The slow increase in Alexa rank has seemed to have increased from a few thousand at a time to tens of thousands, more so than what the slight increase in traffic would suggest.

Just a thought.


BTW, am I the only one who thinks my new sig is funny.

[Menard]

The forum itself was just to be a general discussion forum, and nothing more. There's not much activity on it, but it has simply turned into more of a miscellaneous mix of forums that any central theme; I just add a forum to it, rather than trying to start a separate forum. It basically has a site forum, Indy's feedback forum (I'll explain later), the funhouse forum (I may dump that), a webmasters forum, an adult forum, and a rants forum.

If the forum were not miscellaneous enough already, I have made it even more so.

It is now divided into four sections: general forums, webmasters forums, retail community forums, and support forums; each section having several forums, the largest being the general forums.

I had been working to add support forums for various small sites, rather than having forums on the specific site.

After the hacking incident, I moved the retail community forums to this forum (well, just started it up again) and added several webmaster forums to this one as well.

Some support forums are mixed in with the general forums. I originally had the photography and automotive forums in the support forums, but I decided to just put site specific forums in the support forums and more topic specific forums in the general forums; even though some of those topical forums double as support forums and are linked directly from other sites as their forums. I'll still be considering whether a forum should be in with the general forums or support forums.

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages. Yes, the forum is pretty big right now with so many forums on it; especially compared to having started the forums with only three forums (general discussion, the outhouse, and site admin). The advantage is that it is one forum to which all of my sites (that either had forums or for which I was considering a forum) link.

Yes, ( http://5g8.net/forum/ ) it's ugly, but so is the rest of the site, so it fits.

[Andy]

Menard,

I think we first became friends via my multiple personalities on a lottery forum. LOL

So, consider going a bit mad with say 4 different virtual posters that help and annoy each other. Also consider an out of control flaming thread with cruelty and anything else that will entice lurkers to finally get involved. For example a discussion of a plot to do something dastardly to a vulnerable virtual forum member maybe?

[Menard]

Menard,

I think we first became friends via my multiple personalities on a lottery forum. LOL

So, consider going a bit mad with say 4 different virtual posters that help and annoy each other. Also consider an out of control flaming thread with cruelty and anything else that will entice lurkers to finally get involved. For example a discussion of a plot to do something dastardly to a vulnerable virtual forum member maybe?

I remember that forum. I actually went by a different user name on that one.

That's a pretty good idea.

I actually did that way back in 1992-93 for a friend's local bbs. They wanted to stir up things a bit, to get activity up, and I was already a member of the bbs, so it was suggested that I use a character I had worked on for a radio show we had once considered. The one thing that most every member agreed upon was that they hated Shaitan.

[Andy]

The same technique could be used to fuel blog comments and I bet many bloggers have done this since it is so easy to do. Other people pay workers to do it for them.