Worst Web Sites 2007

Does my page suck?

Is my page OK?

What do you suggest I do to fix my page?

Can you answer my question about [frames] [counters] [HTML]?

How do I (fill-in-the-blank)?

A. Due to the number of requests I receive and the limited amount of time I have, it's impossible to critique people's sites.

As far as how to fix your page, well, that's where my two books and this Web site come in. The whole purpose of the book is to show you how to correct the major Web design mistakes. Of course, this is a blatant plug.

As far as teaching you HTML or answering questions of the "How Do I..." nature, I'm constrained by the regular demands on my time. Try http://www.htmldog.com/ or http://www.webmasterworld.com (see right-side navigation on this site).

Q. You make some useful points, but how about adding a little balance the other way and showing some of the web sites that you would class as absolutely brilliant? If we want people to learn, it's no good telling them off all the time; we need to show them some good examples too.

A. I can think of two reasons (other than it would violate the rule a domain name should have something to do with your subject matter) why I don't often discuss good web design:

Bad web design is pretty consistent across all categories of web sites — you rarely go wrong when you say "Don't use animated GIFs on your web site." With good web design "it depends" — on an individual's taste and on the type of site. You can't really discuss individual taste (My taste in web sites differs from your taste in sites) and it's difficult to know who exactly is the target audience for a specific type of site. (Most companies do not conduct research into how to meet their customers' needs.)
For those of you with a more religious bent, you should note well that 8 of the Ten Commandments mentioned in the Bible are "Thou shalt nots" and only 2 are positive exhortations. God has spoken.

That's one of the reasons why I added Vote! Do These Web Sites Suck? I include sites that don't suck.

Q. Why does your site suck? I came here looking to learn good Web design techniques.

A. I'm always puzzled — and a little bit scared by this question. After all, the domain is called "Web Pages That Suck" not "Web Pages That Don't Suck." The explanation is too long for this page. Read it here.

Q. I don't see the humor in this ("Buy my book or the dog gets it" graphic) at all, especially when your website is listed as a site for teens on the Phoenix Public Library web page.

The graphic in question A. Many of you may be puzzling over this since I eliminated the photo. No, it wasn't eliminated because I was trying to be politically correct; I cut down the number of images on the site because of my bandwidth bill.

Most of you are probably too young to get the humor. This is my homage to a famous National Lampoon magazine cover.

Q. Do you still want us to send you the URLs of sucky web pages?

A. Yes, by all means continue to send them. Visitor suggestions have made WPTS the success it is. With more and more new software programs, plug-ins, and techniques being introduced, the possibilities for screwing up Web pages are growing exponentially. I need your eyes to keep me informed. Because of the volume of e-mails received, I can't guarantee an individual answer.

It's very important to note that I only want the URLs of commercial sites and non-profit sites. As I state in the book, a personal site is just that — personal — and of interest to the author, his/her family and a few friends. I think it's extremely important for a personal Web site to look good because it's your first impression to the world. However, people view their personal pages as their great artistic expression and their brains just seem to fog over about any imperfections. I understand because I firmly believe I look like Richard Gere — despite the infinite amount of contradictory facts at my disposal.

Also, I really can't use home pages from sucky Web designers because it would look like a conflict of interest — even though I don't design web sites professionally.

Q. I want to suggest Chipotle / Coke / Pepsi as a Daily Sucker.

A. I wish I had $10 for every time someone suggests these sites as a Daily Sucker. I've used them all. Chipotle is listed in the Mystery Meat Navigation article, but in case you don't want to go there, here's what I said:

...Yes, but for some reason the "Mystery Meat Navigation" on this site doesn't bother me as much as the concept of mystery meat in the food at a Mexican restaurant.

It's still annoying and I shouldn't condone it. Chipotle should know better.

Q. What do your books have that the site doesn't?

A. Solutions. WPTS' sole mission was to point out sucky design techniques. It didn't tell you how to improve your pages, it didn't cover how to market your site (an extremely important topic), and there was no mention of other sites that will help you make your site more successful.

The bad news is they're both out of print. The good news is they both can be had for a song at Amazon.

Q. Do you e-mail sites mentioned at WPTS and tell them they're the Daily Sucker?

A. Actually, I don't need to — for several reasons. Generally, sites mentioned receive a large number of visitors and most sites keep close watch on their Web logs. Then we have scumball Web design firms who contact these sites offering to "fix" the problems. Then we have some psychos who enjoy e-mailing the offending sites and informing them their site made WPTS. Some people forge e-mails, so let me say that I never send e-mails out of the blue or sign guestbooks.

A next-to-final note: if you suggest a sucky site and I use it, don't e-mail the site and tell them they made the Daily Sucker. Why? Because they're smart enough to figure out you're probably the one who sent it in to me in the first place. They won't like you. Trust me.

Final note to all the silly little kids: if you're going to e-mail people, don't use obscenities, etc. You can get your ass put in a sling and lose your e-mail account or worse. There are laws against that. Oops. I said, "ass."

Q. Why no archive of past sucky sites?

A. Well, part of the reason is listed in the previous answer. I don't want ambulance-chasing Web designers harassing folks. The main reason is simpler. People keep changing their sites and then I'd get all these e-mails saying, "I don't get it. The XYZ site looks nothing like the way you described it." I hardly have time to update the sites on the Mystery Meat Navigation page. I couldn't begin to imagine how much time it would take to keep tabs on the roughly 1,500 sucky sites I've discussed over the years. The only "archive" has to do with sites that use Mystery Meat Navigation and I don't update it because, quite frankly, I don't like updating outside links. That's why there's no archive.

Q. Why no search engine? I thought every good site had one.

There's no search engine for the same reason there's no archive. Except for a few sites (mostly sites that use Mystery Meat Navigation), sites mentioned appear only for a few days.

Q. What about art and experimental sites?

A. What about them? People have the mistaken notion that I'm against them. There's nothing wrong with these types of sites because they're a type of personal page.

The only problem is some of them exert a strong influence on the design community who will then exert a strong influence on you and the design of your site. k10k.net is a perfect example of an art/experimental site. It's a great site to go to if you are looking for what is current in the world of experimental Web design, but you shouldn't want your commercial Web site to look like that.

Mystery Meat Navigation is a perfect example of a technique that's fine for these types of sites, but I'm beginning to see more and more "real" sites use this technique. That's the problem.

Q. I don't agree with some of your selections. Don't you think there's such a thing as a target audience?

A. Depends on which selections you mean.

As far as target audience, you need to read my books for an explanation. The short explanation is in one of my articles, "Everything you need to know about Web design my father taught me in 1964." The problem is simple: most people can't comprehend the difference and that's why some of the techniques I criticize, while valid on the site, should not be emulated on normal, business sites.

Q. I didn't think "XYZ site" was that bad .... I've seen far worse featured here! What gives?

A. I'm not here to provide web design car wrecks for your entertainment nor am I here to provide class assignments for your school. I'm here to teach good design by looking at bad design — the emphasis is on the word "bad." You actually learn more by looking at sites with specific problems than by the obviously horrible examples that can only be fixed by a total redesign.

Q. You said my site sucked — what was wrong?

A. Of all the questions I get, this one amazes me the most. Perhaps my amazement is because I'm a left-brain kind of guy. When I look in the mirror I see a balding, overweight, post-middle-age, white guy. I don't look and see Tom Cruise — especially since I stopped taking drugs 35 years ago. Well, the best answer as to why I said your site sucked is to look around at the different sites and techniques featured on this site, read the Daily Sucker for a couple of weeks, and notice the similarities between what I mention and what's on your site.

Q. How come your picture is all over the place?

A. When I was single and went out on a date, I always made the girl sit across from me at dinner. Hey, I'm paying; she's got to at least look at me. When you visit this site, you're on a date with me, so it's going to cost you. I'm considering a fee-based site where you won't have to see my face or the Google ads. Like I said, you're going to pay one way or another <g>.

Q. Speaking of pictures — why are they optimized beyond legal limits?

A. Very simple. Unlike many sites about web design, this site gets lots of visitors and I have to pay for the bandwidth. Graphics eat up bandwidth, so I over-optimize my graphics to keep the costs down. Here's my bandwidth report for just the images:

Nov. 2006 -- 11.6Gb
Dec. 2006 -- 16.5Gb
Jan. 2007 -- 5.5Gb

The January improvement had to do with removing lots of images and optimizing the heck out of the rest.

Q. How come some links open up new windows?

A. If a link is to a site outside of WPTS, I try to make it open up in a new window. Interior links, hopefully, don't open in a new window.

Q. What's the background of the Daily Sucker?

Just as Son of Web Pages That Suck is the update to Web Pages That Suck, the Daily Sucker contains material that should be considered updates to "Son of Web Pages That Suck."

I can't see the future — if I could, I'd be picking lottery numbers and stocks. The Daily Sucker features new sucky design techniques not in existence when the books were written. Since Web designers are stubborn, I also include old sucky techniques featured in the book. Maybe if they see a bad technique featured enough they'll stop using it.

The suckers are based on user input. You see a site that you think sucks and then e-mail the URL to me. No personal pages (personal pages are supposed to reflect the individual's personality, artistic freedom, and lack of taste — a commercial site is about making money) or Web site designers (it would look like a conflict of interest). If I think there's some merit to your selection, I post it along with some commentary. If you know of a site that qualifies, let me know.

The sucky example will usually be available for only 24 hours (or thereabouts — weekends and egregious examples are exceptions) — never to be seen again. Well, probably. Somebody could always suggest them again — and they do.

Q. Isn't your site called "Web Sites That Suck?"

A. Uh…no. It's always been called Web Pages That Suck. For some reason, folks refer to it as Web Sites That Suck and I own that domain name and — usually — have my ISP set a pointer so that people (including some really, really smart folks) who type in websitesthatsuck.com will end up at WPTS. There are times when this link doesn't work and they get a dead page. Oh, well.

Q. Spelling and grammar?

A. If you're sending an e-mail with a question, a compliment, a sucky site you want to nominate, or suggestion for improvement, I'm not a stickler for spelling and grammar — feel free to be creative. You're trying to help me out and I appreciate it. On the other hand, I've discovered that people who send negative e-mail almost always are…uh…not very "something" — the word "bright" comes to mind. They send e-mails like:

i dont know wat you're talking about…eva had a look at your website?? it sux!!!…if you designed it yourself…then you should think about a career change…if some1 else designed it then get rid of them… wateva u do…start again dude…then u can start to dis other peoples websites…

These folks don't need to read the article, "How to Write Like a Wanker." They're living the wanker dream already. If you have less-than-positive comments, please write them so a normal person can read them. If not, I won't. Of course, if these people read the FAQ, they wouldn't be sending comments like this.

Q. What's this silliness about being "America's Web Site?"

A. On December 25, 2002, I declared that WebPagesThatSuck is now officially America's Website. How can I do this? The same way the Dallas Cowboys (an American football team who won 5 lost 11) became "America's Team", Rudolf (not Rudy) Giuliani became "America's Mayor", Sarah Hughes became "America's Ice Skating Princess", and MSNBC became "America's News Center." They declared themselves to be "America's Whatever."

The only thing I won't stoop down to is putting an American Flag near the phrase "America's Website." That's too tacky, although I reserve the right to be tacky in the future <g>.

To celebrate "America's Web Site" I created a special Flash home page — another in my series of bad home pages. Because it's Flash-based, it will open in a new window. (Normally, I'm against links opening new windows. See later.)

On January 1, 2004, I eliminated most — emphasis on "most" — references to "America's Web Site" simply because the point was made.

Q. I can't find any sucky sites.

It appears that people who complain about not being able to find sucky sites don't like to read or they're like me — I'm directionally impaired. OK, try here.

Q. My log files show visitors from "Web Pages That Suck" or my guest book shows you visited or I received an e-mail from you, but I can't find any information on your site — why?

A. I'll tackle the easiest part first: I never send e-mails out of the blue saying "Your site sucks" or sign guestbooks. (Here's a design tip: You shouldn't use a guestbook. It's a sign that "I'm an amateur.")

Concerning log files: About twice a week I receive an e-mail like the following:

I want to know how people are getting referred to my site from yours, and why...Now, I want to know where you found our site and how it was used on yours. How are people being directed to our site from yours?

First. There are very few pages which mention actual sites. If you're not getting visitors from the Daily Sucker or the Mystery Meat Navigation article, then somebody is playing games with you). There are no links to regular sites from the root page — http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com — except for "good" companies such as those where I'm going to speak.

Unless your site is receiving hundreds or thousands of visitors (not hits) from WPTS, I don't know exactly why WPTS shows up in your log files. One guy wrote in and said he got 89 hits from us. Well, his home page has 88 graphics on it (plus the page). There was only one visitor. If you don't understand this concept, you won't understand anything else I'm going to say.

I've tried to figure how my site shows up in your log files — and I've had some pretty smart people try to figure it out — but there is no definitive answer. I used to think people were on WPTS and manually typed in a URL of a site they wanted to go to or one that reminded them of one of the Daily Suckers, but that doesn't seem to cause it to happen.

There are three possible solutions:

1. Your log analysis software may have incorrectly interpreted an IP address and assigned it to WPTS.

2. Apparently, Linux browsers are well-known for bugs so it might be a browser error.

3. I believe the real solution is someone is trying to upset you by forcing a referrer from WPTS into your log file. This is very easy to do. In fact a simple 7-line Perl script can do it (if you don't know what Perl is, then you have no business worrying because this is elementary). Don't ask me for the code. If you know Perl, you can do this. One person discovered an ex-employee had written such a Perl script just to upset him.

In fact, I've been told, that someone who knows Linux can do the same operation in 1 line from the command line version of lwp.

Hopefully, this explains what is happening. On the other hand, you may actually have been the Daily Sucker. In that case, there probably is no record because I don't keep an archive. If you're wondering why you were chosen, read this.