Critique This

[instantnet]

If someone could take a quick look at our website and tell us what you think that would be great.

http://www.instantnetworks.net

[TravelNow]

Not search based- but just a couple comments
- Clean set up- I like that, make the content easy to read
-The first thing I saw was an active x pop up warning- I realize that won't happen to everyone- but it will to those with similar firewalls to mine.
-I like the logo, but it's a little fuzzy
-Any chance you would consider setting your animation to loop only a few times?

[ihelpyou]

Yes, I got a window asking me to 'install' something before I could view the page. Not good at all as it will force visitors to leave immediately. Good lookin site though!

[Great-1]

The menu should be in the same font as the rest of the text.

[instantnet]

We made a few changes...

The Active X is some wierd MS thing. We are using Javascript for client side validation for the form on the front page.

Anyhow we removed the client side validation using javascript and I hope the active X message will go away...Now it uses server side validation.

Other pages may have active x aka jhavascript... but I didn't think it would be a good idea to have it on our frontpage either.

----
Fonts Etc The main pages uses the default font - Times New Roman the Menu uses arial. Times new roman does not look good at 9 pt. We didn't modify the menu but thought you might want to take a look at the meanu if we did take your sugestion.
http://www.instantnetworks.net/cf/header3.cfm

What do you think of the old header? I am no web designer but I think its yucky

----------------

Fuzzy graphics - JPEG set to med compression. Our main page take 5 seconds to load on a 56k Modem. Not including the header and footer pages which are automatcially included..

Should we sacrifice a little better quality for speed?
The only place that logo appears is on the main page.


Thanks all

http://www.instantnetworks.net

[TravelNow]

It may be good to have input from someone with a slower connection on the speed vs. quality question. I am on a T1- so I only notice quality. If your target audience is on a slower connection- it will help to have that input.

[instantnet]

It isn't our target market per se, but we don't want to limit our market audience either. Does the globe thing bug ya?

Thanks

[nicebloke]

You might want to think about a better title for your page.

And by the way this:

<META NAME="TITLE" CONTENT="InstantNetworks.net Advanced Networking Services ASP, Cold Fusion, Imail, Control Panel">

ain't going to help you one bit. You like your meta tags eh? :)

[instantnet]

That's all beyond my control I am the sales droid, but thanks for your input. I agree with you on the META tag portion. Everything that I have seen states that Meta tags are useless. We plan to spruce up the website whatever needs sprucing up I guess... And start advertising. No Banner Advertising though.

[Great-1]

Originally posted by instantnet

Fonts Etc The main pages uses the default font - Times New Roman the Menu uses arial. Times new roman does not look good at 9 pt. We didn't modify the menu but thought you might want to take a look at the meanu if we did take your sugestion.
http://www.instantnetworks.net/cf/header3.cfm

What do you think of the old header? I am no web designer but I think its yucky


You're quite right, it doesn't look great. It's not essential to have everything in the same font, it's just an ideal.

[crifer]

Instantnet!

It's a nice page, but!

Lose the satellite that's moving, got no function.
Have you tried moving the instantnetwork logo with the cobaltserver and the persons above the linkmenu, and maybe give the linkmenu a little more darkgray tone?

Try split the logo in to gif and jpgs. That can reduse the load time.

Otherwise it's good. Maybe change the link color and put the line below the links back.


Kristoffer

[instantnet]

Sat do hickey - We were a Starband reseller, we are in the process of getting our company recertified. You think it still has no purpose? If yes , perhaps you are right. At the moment it does have no function.

Lines under links - Does not one assume that since it is a pull down menu that all the options are links? Having lines underneath each link would not look good either

Header PLacement - From what I am told we put special code at the top and bottom of every page to put that stuff there.
Here is a revised version with the headers in different places... http://instantnetworks.net/index5.cfm (Its a temp page) The main page is the only page that has this big logo so I guess its the only page that needs to change right?


Gifs/Jpegs - I don't know much about graphics either but I do know that more colors you have the better it is to have it in jpeg format So the left and the right would be in jpeg anyway leaving just the middle in gif. So its more work and the page will take longer to load.

Search engines etc - As we go out and find a SEO to work with I thought I would try the backward links again from google. We tried it a few days ago and I didn't expect any difference. However today it can't find us at all. What did we do wrong?

Our menu is comprised of Javascript menus but they still contain ahrefs but would the fouling up an search engines ability to crawl our page? Just curious..

Thanks all

[crifer]

Originally posted by instantnet
Sat do hickey - We were a Starband reseller, we are in the process of getting our company recertified. You think it still has no purpose? If yes , perhaps you are right. At the moment it does have no function.Ah.. i didn't know that, i just thought that it was enoying becouse of the movement. You didn't get the picture that you had an certification from Starband.


Lines under links - Does not one assume that since it is a pull down menu that all the options are links? Having lines underneath each link would not look good either
Honestly i didn't know that it was a polldown first. I just thought it lead to another page when you clicked it. And the other links on the page i just thought was colored. Maybe im just getting to use to the a:hover that everybody use.

Header PLacement - From what I am told we put special code at the top and bottom of every page to put that stuff there.
Here is a revised version with the headers in different places... http://instantnetworks.net/index5.cfm (Its a temp page) The main page is the only page that has this big logo so I guess its the only page that needs to change right?
Hmm... special code? Like server side? Why don't you use the same logo on every page. The end user can get confused if that person don't recognize a theme in the page.

Gifs/Jpegs - I don't know much about graphics either but I do know that more colors you have the better it is to have it in jpeg format So the left and the right would be in jpeg anyway leaving just the middle in gif. So its more work and the page will take longer to load.
I agree a bit there. It's not always like you said. Jpegs are for photo images and gifs are for text and maybe small images that don't need so many colors. I would recommend you try splitting the image in to three like you said. It may be more work for you but it's quicker to download. And the instantnetwork.net text will look more brighter and not so blur.


Our menu is comprised of Javascript menus but they still contain ahrefs but would the fouling up an search engines ability to crawl our page? Just curious..
Thanks all

I looked at the code and it think the SE can follow the hrefs (can anyone verify?) But it was alot of unnecessary code that could be placed in an external file. The javascript and the style.

I think the page look much better now. I looked around and the only think that can be boring and get you unconcentrated is the long text lines. Try reduce them to 60-65 letters / line.

Kristoffer

[instantnet]

I found out the code. Cold Fusion. It inserts the header and the footer on very page. So in effect it is already external. Isn't the hover effect another javascript trick? The less java the better I think... every other page shows a smaller Instantnetworks.net logo so it is still branded.

Rewording will probably take place in a shortwhile as we will have the change the frontpage often to make it interesting.

[crifer]

Originally posted by instantnet
I found out the code. Cold Fusion. It inserts the header and the footer on very page. So in effect it is already external. Isn't the hover effect another javascript trick? The less java the better I think... every other page shows a smaller Instantnetworks.net logo so it is still branded.

Rewording will probably take place in a shortwhile as we will have the change the frontpage often to make it interesting. The hover is a css selector. No javascript. Yes, the pages are branded. I meant to keep the theme. It gives (for me) a professional look.

[instantnet]

Hey guys.. Guess we fixed the menu. Its a totally different one now, which I like alot better. It's much cleaner looking, the menus are organizaed, we use the CC selector and an auto open feature so people know its a submenu. The Java is in an external file :-)

However since this is a forum on search engines anyone figure out why we may have lost even our backwards links?

Thank you

[TravelNow]

Looking better- good job!

Notpicking time since you have been so receptive-

Email Newsletter
What's in it? Let them know and you'll get more sign ups and less unsubs
Specials Newsletter?
Networking Newsletter?

[instantnet]

done

[crifer]

Instantnet!

Great job, looks much better now and it's clear and easy to navigate. Keep it up!

[instantnet]

Cross platform viewability on the java menu was an issue but not now... now its just more of an issue of text layout if you use Opera. I guess we should leave the web guy alone!

I found something cool http://www.cross-browser.com/

Neat sliding effect, but we should spend forever tweaking it I guess.

http://www.instantnetworks.net