1001 Webs

Hello there,

I didn't know this Group existed, otherwise I would've been pestering
you before.

Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net

Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

Thank you

"1001 Webs" <1001webs (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Hello there,

I didn't know this Group existed, otherwise I would've been pestering
you before.

Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net

Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

Lose the tables.

--
Richard.

On Nov 3, 2:51 pm, "rf" <r... (AT) invalid (DOT) com> wrote:

"1001 Webs" <1001w... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote in message

news:1194096074.740457.4490 (AT) 22g2000hsm (DOT) googlegroups.com...

Hello there,

I didn't know this Group existed, otherwise I would've been pestering
you before.

Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net

Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

Lose the tables.

I will.
Some day, in the near future ...

On Nov 3, 3:18 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.m... (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:

1001 Webs wrote:
Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net

Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

Besides the tables nested at least five deep that Richard mentioned, why
are these pages Transitional? New work should be Strict.
I recall that I did change it to Transitional in order for the pages

to validate some Affiliate code or some kind of external script.
You are right. It should be Strict.

You say,
"We develop your website using the latest advances in technology and
always fully compliant to Internet specifications in HTML, XML, CSS,
JavaScript, CGI/Perl, ASP, PHP-MySQL, etc.,"

..but you don't use "the latest advances" for your own site.
We do use them when we build many of the Content Management Systems

advertised there, such as Drupal, Joomla, etc.
But for internal management we use phpCOIN, and the website is base on
that system.
phpCOIN is a great package designed for web-hosting resellers to
handle clients, orders, invoices, etc.
Have a look here:
http://phpcoin.com/

But as great as phpCOIN is at handling those tasks, it does have some
shortcomings.
One of them is that it doesn't feed friendly URLs and we consider that
to be a must.
So we have relegated phpCOIN to a second level, but nonetheless, used
its original layout for the front end , so the site is consistent,
regardless of whether you are logged in or just visiting.

You say,
body {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px; ...

..so you need to read this:http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

That only applies to people that want to change the default size of
the font and to those who use IE6 -.
However, by saying that you've made me realize that some people may
have difficulties reading the text, so I have increased the size to
12px and the line height to 130%.
Perhaps it doesn't look as elegant but now it should be clear and
readable to everyone.
Give us some feedback, please.

On 2007-11-03, 1001 Webs wrote:

..so you need to read this:http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

That only applies to people that want to change the default size of
the font and to those who use IE6 -.

And those with high resolution screens, or visual impairments
(including tired eyes after a long day), or who place their
monitors further away than the norm, etc...

However, by saying that you've made me realize that some people may
have difficulties reading the text, so I have increased the size to
12px and the line height to 130%.

12px is still much too small to be legible on my monitor.

Why do you think you n eed to specify a font-size?

Perhaps it doesn't look as elegant but now it should be clear and
readable to everyone.

Only if I have a minimum font=size set in my broswer.


--
Chris F.A. Johnson, webmaster <http://Woodbine-Gerrard.com>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

On Nov 3, 6:19 pm, "AGw. (Usenet)" <freder... (AT) southernskies (DOT) co.uk>
wrote:

On Nov 3, 1:21 pm, 1001 Webs <1001w... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I didn't know this Group existed, otherwise I would've been pestering
you before.

Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net

Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

The "look" is of middling quality. In particular, the design "ethos"
of the main part of the page below the navigation menu doesn't seem to
have much artistic connection with the top three bars; to put that
another way, the page lacks cohesion.
I am aware of that.

I think it is because the H1 title.
I've made it slightly larger but I'm still not convinced ...

The following are my spontaneous responses to browsing round your
site:

Why does it say "1001webs.net - International" at the top left? This
seems to imply there's a "non-international" version available,
although no link is provided to alternatives, nor any apparent
explanation given for the distinction between the two.
There are actually 10 non-international (i.e. localized) versions of

the website.
"1001webs.net - English", "1001webs.net - Français" etc.

The envelope at top-right doesn't necessarily mean "e-mail" to people,
they might be expecting a link to a contacts page. I'd actually use
the word "e-mail" as well, or even get rid of it altogether since the
"Contact" link on the navigation menu is more prominent.
The envelope at top-right is an "e-mail" mailto:, whereas the

"Contact" link on the navigation menu leads to a Contact form.
Redundant, I know, but it doesn't bother me in excess.

I was initially thrown by seeing the Union Jack next to the word
"Latin", since the UK is not a "Latin" country.
Well, let say half Latin, then ...

Upon further
reflection you're obviously distinguishing between writing systems,
but that's redundant information. Your use of flags is also unclear:
do they link to pages with different content catered for specific
countries, or are you using them to represent languages? If the
latter, then you're going to confuse or annoy the heck out of people:

We mean languages, of course.
We started out with the 5 Latin ones you see on top.
They are displayed in alphabetical order: English, French, German,
Portuguese and Spanish, so no one gets offended (luckily English
happens to be the first one alphabetically speaking, since it is the
major language on Planet Earth nowadays).
When the time came to include more languages, we had to reconsider the
order. We couldn't put in Arabic first, because it only represents 50
million users.
But on the other hand we could hurt people's feelings by putting them
below the Latin based languages without a plausible explanation .
That's the reason for the no-so-good-looking Latin-NonLatin redundant
info.
A lot of thought and debate has gone into that decision, believe me.
If you think of a better solution, please let us know.

India, for example, has several major languages and many minor ones,
It's absolutely true that India has several major languages, but we

had to settle for one.
Maybe the wrong choice, because Bengali/Bangla is believed to have
more users than Hindi, although many of those are located in Pakistan.
It has been taken into account as well that Hindi is second to English
in India as far as business is concerned.

and do you not cater for users in (say) Canada or the United States?
Of course we do.

We cater for English, French and Spanish speaking users.

If you do mean languages then use each language's name instead; if you
mean locale, then state that clearly instead.
I have stated it in the Index page by writing the name of the language

below each flag.
And every section should state it as well, in their own languages.

An artistic preference, but I think the "global" image you've used in
your banner could be improved upon substantially.
Probably, yes.

Your page changes width when the text size is changed; personally, I'd
have it stay the same.
Due to the menu.

Another change in progress.

In the main body of your page you've effectively hidden your links.
If you must avoid underlining them you should at least have them in a
visually distinct colour (or even have them with a different
background colour). I had to actually hunt for the links, which no
user should *ever* have to do.
Not sure about that AGw.

Those links are meant for Search Engines.
Regular users can access those sections through the Menu.

Minor grammatical errors:
"in Internet" should be changed throughout to "on the Internet"
Several hosting options *are* available to fit your needs
hosted *on* [not "in"] *high-quality* [not "high quality"] servers
concerning the installation and [not "and the"] creation process
1001webs.net specializes in Hosting and Graphic Design *for* [not
"of"] some of the most popular
Corrected.

Thank you.

Your statement that you have a "99.9% Uptime Guarantee" should be a
link to that guarantee.
We have linked to our provider at the Hosting page by saying:

"We have tested many different Internet Service Providers and we've
finally decided to team up with SiteGround in order to offer you the
BEST Hosting available in the market for your website."
The "99.9% Uptime Guarantee" has been literally copied from their
page.
We monitor our websites 24 hours a day and except for a minor incident
more than a year ago that lasted less than 10 minutes we have never
had any interruptions in the service.
Compared to other providers we've worked with, that's extraordinary.

Having said that, I'm now unclear whether you're offering these
services directly or not; earlier on the page you refer to the site as
just being a portal (ie, providing information about third-party
services). Number 1 rule for websites: be clear and consistent as to
what you're actually offering your visitors.
It may seem ambiguous, but we are not misleading anyone.

We do what we say we do. All services offered in our website could be
done by proficient PHP-MySQL ITs with some level of expertise, but
those are not the people we're targeting.

Your offer to translate websites should display a list of language
names (in their own language; eg "Deutsch") and not of flags. Flags
should probably be completely avoided for this service unless you're
also able to adapt websites for different locales (countries) as well.
When you go to each section they are displayed in their own language.

But we had to make an index page and English is the more appropriate
for the entrance page.
Someone suggested to have sub-domains, but there are some SEO related
issues against that approach.

"Click for More Templates" should change size when text size is
altered.
Yes

I'd lose the subtle "photo corners" you've used around the templates;
most people won't notice them, and those who do will probably think
there's something gone slightly wrong with your formatting!
Probably

Increasing the text size means the menu at the bottom overflows onto
the dark bar at the bottom, making the items harder to read (it looks
ugly as well when it does that, of course).
Correct

Your page title should tell the user something useful: "1001webs.net"
says nothing.
It is the index page.

The description says it all.
But yes, we'll add some descriptive meaningful title

I'm getting 9 warnings for your HTML.
I know. Due to affiliate code.

Maybe we shouldn't use any banners in the index.html

Now for a quick look at your Spanish-language version:

The widths used differ from the English-language version; any company
offering "global" services would surely want a consistent look and
feel.
Because of the longer menus

They need to be reduced.
Work in progress as well.

You've failed to translate "Latin" and "NonLatin" into Spanish.
Si

Your introductory text actually gives more detail than is to be found
in the English version.
Does it?

I understand now.
You have to look at the English index page:
http://www.1001webs.net/en/index_en.html
It is different from the main index.html page for the reasons
explained above.

The rest of the main content differs in tone and detail from the
English version; why do Spanish speakers get "steps", but not the
English ones, for example? If you're offering translation services
then you should have two pages that are identical in all respects
except the actual language used; localisation to particular countries
would also make a difference, but it's not remotely clear where your
site is based so this does not apply in your case.
http://www.1001webs.net/en/index_en.html

Overall the Spanish version seems better written than the English one,
and in fact I'm wondering if the English version has been translated
from the Spanish.
Right guess

It was originally translated from Spanish.
It was a Spanish-only website that we took over.

Anyway, translations should be of an equal quality
to the original, so that the reader would then be unaware that it even
*was* a translation.
You're right.

But not everyone is multilingual, you know ...

Since you're not using cookies, how do you ensure that I don't have to
keep changing the language version to the one I prefer each time I
visit?
Could do.

But it's only a click away ...

Your Russian version is all in English apart from the navigation
menu! Similar problems exist with your versions for non-European
languages. Not a good advert for your translation service!
Unfinished versions should be invisible to users until they're ready
for publication.
The site is unfinished, of course, specially the Russian version.

We've had some problems with the Russian team that was going to manage
that side.
They wanted to run the German side as well, and assured that they had
the resources to do it.
As a result, they focused on incorrectly translating the German side
and postponed the Russian one.
In fact we're debating whether we want to keep them as partners, to
tell you the truth. Not for the German section that's for sure.
You can read about here:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.u...624825159bca1f

I've just noticed that the Portuguese version at least still has
"Click for More Templates" in English.
Work in progress.

Returning to the English-language version:

On the "Contact" page, the information about template support is below
the fold and will probably be missed by most people using the page.
But it is the only place it can go ...

Your "Search" page offers a veritable wealth of options (?) and
information, which is far too much for anyone. A typical user will
just want a search box to type in and hit "Go" for; incidentally, such
a search engine interface should probably be prominent on each page.
Any other options or information should be available only as "Advanced
Search" for the minority of people who use such things, and even then
shouldn't mean having to read through paragraphs of stuff. Your
Google search box is also defaulted to searching the entire web rather
than just your site, which is a great way to point visitors to your
competitors!
We're not afraid of competitors.

Otherwise we wouldn't be posting here.

On your "Samples" page you've put the templates in alphabetical order;
this has the unfortunate effect of having the porn, sorry "Adult",
template as the first that will be seen. I'd suggest you change
this! Maybe you could move it to a "specialist" category at the end,
or something.
We thought of that as well, and someone suggested to label them "XXX"

instead.
But as you probably know, Adult websites are the most popular on the
Internet ...

I'd also have an in-page navigation list of templates visible above
the fold, so people can see at quick glance the variety of what you
have on offer.
That'd be a bit complex.

There are literally thousands of Templates available.
That's why we divide them into categories.

Information about your affiliate programme should also be above the
fold, or at least a link to further information should be. And
incidentally, since you're using the Union Jack to represent the
English language, you should really be using correct British spelling:
it should be "programme", not "program".
Sorry but I don't agree on that one.

We are here for business, and American English is the standard around
the World.

On your "Web Design" page your information about localisation should
make it clear that you are offering to adapt *content* to the
requirements of particular countries; sites in Germany require an
"Impressum", for example. It's unclear to non-technophile users what
you're actually offering since all you really mention is a whole load
of technical jargon without any "real world" information or examples
(apart from search-engine optimisation).
Right.

We have to further develop on that.

And finally... your navigation menu shouldn't contain active links to
the page upon which it appears.
I am not really sure what you mean by "active links"?

OK, I'm done!
Thank you very much AGw.

I really appreciate the time you've taken pointing out those
corrections.
I owe you one beer, coffee or whatever it is custom to have in your
localized area of the Planet

On Nov 3, 8:48 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.m... (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:

1001 Webs wrote:
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" wrote:
1001 Webs wrote:
Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net
Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

Besides the tables nested at least five deep that Richard mentioned,
why are these pages Transitional? New work should be Strict.

I recall that I did change it to Transitional in order for the pages
to validate some Affiliate code or some kind of external script. You
are right. It should be Strict.

Heck, you could change it to HTML 3.2 and it would probably validate.
But it still wouldn't be right.
Anyway, we'll probably go table-less in the near future ...

..but you don't use "the latest advances" for your own site.

We do use them when we build many of the Content Management Systems
advertised there, such as Drupal, Joomla, etc. But for internal
management we use phpCOIN, and the website is base on that system.
phpCOIN is a great package designed for web-hosting resellers to
handle clients, orders, invoices, etc.
Have a look here:
http://phpcoin.com/

What I see there does not indicate that your own site needs to be
constructed with it. It is only a tool for those not experienced enough
to write sites by themselves.
What you see there is the front end.

What you don't see there are a load of much needed features designed
for web-hosting resellers to handle clients, orders, invoices, notes
and helpdesk, etc.

Have a look at phpCOIN features:
http://docs.phpcoin.com/index.php/Docs_Home#Features

You say,
body {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px; ...

..so you need to read this:
http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

That only applies to people that want to change the default size of
the font and to those who use IE6 -.

..or anyone else with vision difficulties. 11px penalizes everyone of
them using IE (though if they are smart, they long ago stopped using
it), and since you use Verdana (as explained in my link), an overly
large font, you also penalize everyone who is using a computer without
that font installed.
Helvetica and Arial, which I've defined as substitutes for Verdana,

are actually smaller.

However, by saying that you've made me realize that some people may
have difficulties reading the text, so I have increased the size to
12px and the line height to 130%.

Change the font size to: 100% instead of any pixel or point value.
I'll do some research first beacuse I have to change the whole lot,

h1, etc.

Perhaps it doesn't look as elegant but now it should be clear and
readable to everyone. Give us some feedback, please.

..except for the aforementioned IE users, impaired vision users, and
those without Verdana.

Thank you for your valuable opinion.

1001 Webs wrote:

On Nov 3, 3:18 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
a.nony.m... (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:
1001 Webs wrote:

http://www.1001webs.net

you need to read this:http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

That only applies to people that want to change the default size of
the font and to those who use IE6 -.

Huh? It can apply to anyone who has any number of visual impairments. Mr
Johnson mentioned some possibilities. And IE7 does not change the text
size any better than IE6.

However, by saying that you've made me realize that some people may
have difficulties reading the text, so I have increased the size to
12px

Well golly. My default text size is 20px. How much more readable do you
think 60% of that (12px) is going to be compared to 55% (11px)?

Perhaps it doesn't look as elegant but now it should be clear and
readable to everyone.

Elegant is subjective, but readable to everyone it definitely is not.

--
Berg

On Nov 3, 10:18 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.m... (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:

1001 Webs wrote:
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" wrote:
... and since you use Verdana (as explained in my link), an overly
large font, you also penalize everyone who is using a computer
without that font installed.

Helvetica and Arial, which I've defined as substitutes for Verdana,
are actually smaller.

Well, of course they are. That's why I said you penalize anyone who does
not have Verdana. Your 11px with Arial is way too small.
You all are right.

I wasn't checking it properly in other browsers.

By the way, near as I can count, you have this:
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

*172* times in your style sheet. It needs to be there only *once*. In
the body { }.
It is an imported style sheet from a template for a CMS System.

I didn't want to touch anything until I found out where every class
pointed to.
But you're right.

Change that one occurrence to:
font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

Maybe add Tahoma at the beginning of it.

I will.
Thanks a lot everybody.

On Nov 3, 8:48 pm, "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
<a.nony.m... (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:

1001 Webs wrote:
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" wrote:
1001 Webs wrote:
Please, would you be so kind as to review our website?
http://www.1001webs.net
Brutally honest critiques are most welcome.

Besides the tables nested at least five deep that Richard mentioned,
why are these pages Transitional? New work should be Strict.

I recall that I did change it to Transitional in order for the pages
to validate some Affiliate code or some kind of external script. You
are right. It should be Strict.

Heck, you could change it to HTML 3.2 and it would probably validate.
But it still wouldn't be right.

..but you don't use "the latest advances" for your own site.

We do use them when we build many of the Content Management Systems
advertised there, such as Drupal, Joomla, etc. But for internal
management we use phpCOIN, and the website is base on that system.
phpCOIN is a great package designed for web-hosting resellers to
handle clients, orders, invoices, etc.
Have a look here:
http://phpcoin.com/

What I see there does not indicate that your own site needs to be
constructed with it. It is only a tool for those not experienced enough
to write sites by themselves.

You say,
body {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px; ...

..so you need to read this:
http://k75s.home.att.net/fontsize.html

That only applies to people that want to change the default size of
the font and to those who use IE6 -.

..or anyone else with vision difficulties. 11px penalizes everyone of
them using IE (though if they are smart, they long ago stopped using
it), and since you use Verdana (as explained in my link), an overly
large font, you also penalize everyone who is using a computer without
that font installed.

However, by saying that you've made me realize that some people may
have difficulties reading the text, so I have increased the size to
12px and the line height to 130%.

Change the font size to: 100% instead of any pixel or point value.

This is funny.
When you search for "sample css file" in Google the first two results
lead you to sample css files that use points instead of percentages:
http://www.computing.dcu.ie/~asmeato...odule.css.html

and this one from the sample offered for download at Zen Garden:
http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sample.css
but when you look at the CSS they are actually using at their website:
http://www.csszengarden.com/001/001.css
you only see percentages.

A conspiracy to mislead unaware people?