The Daily Sucker

Submitter comments: See below.

Vincent Flanders’ comments: The bad news: somehow, I “lost” the email. The good news: The content was easy to remember. Yale University didn’t read Does My Web Site Suck? Checklist 1 and has a “Welcome To” message on their home page.

No web site needs a “Welcome To” message, but Yale? Everybody knows they’re welcome to your web site. That’s why you have one. They’ve already made a commitment when they clicked on a link or typed in the URL. You don’t have to sell them. That’s one of the reasons splash pages (like Sucker #2, below) make no sense. You don’t need to seduce them into exploring your site further. They’ve taken the bait.

Before the folks over at Harvard start yelling, “We don’t need no stinking ‘Welcome To’ message,” I’d like to point out that it’s in your TITLE tag. Tsk Tsk. What Harvard really needs is someone who understands DNS. While http://www.harvard.edu gets you to their site, http://harvard.edu/doesn’t.

Yale University