Website Review Request - blah d blah

<p>Hi All,<br>

I have recently updated my website and was wondering if you could spare some time and let know what you think of it. We are looking for comments about the overall design including the colour schemes as well as content.<br>

<a href="http://www.blahdblah.com">www.blahdblah.com</a><br>

Thanks</p><div>[ATTACH=full]598775[/ATTACH]</div>

<p>It seems odd to me that a company that specializes in graphics design, website design, and branding would ask our opinion. </p>

<p>What the heck does the paper airplane mean? I hate the green, it reminds me of sickness and pea soup.</p>

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<p>It seems odd to me that a company that specializes in graphics design, website design, and branding would ask our opinion</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's not odd, because this appears to be shameless forum spam intended to boost Google ranking. He's not soliciting actual opinions, has no interest in the nature and purpose of photo.net, and really just wants to have his site appear more linked-to. It's also possible they're just fishing around for people in GB that need a web site. So, it's spamvertising.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>man, you guys are harsh! and probably right ;)</p>

<p>I calls 'em like I sees 'em. And we've seen this performance many times. I agree about the pea soup, too.<br /><br />You know what might be gratifying, and somewhat more just than usual? Instead of rewarding this sort of forum abuse by simply deleting this thread for the spam that it is and giving him a no-harm-done getaway, use it instead to allow Google to find passages like this:<br /><br />"blah d blah design appears to be made up of a guy that uses canned templates to crank out web sites, and who is so clueless about the subtleties and importance of search ranking that he's actually willing to poison his brand <em>and</em> by association poison the web sites of his own prospective customers by using long-discredited techniques to try to produce fake credibility through the out-of-context spammy placement of insincere questions on non-related web sites. Would not consider them for professional services, given the lack of professionalism shown in their marketing methods."<br /><br />Or something like that. It's educated speculation, based on the hamfisted and somewhat sleazy methods we've just seen him display. Plus, anyone that would use that color green has to have their design sense, and thus their credibility as a go-to resource for web work in the first place, questioned. Though pea soup and ham for lunch <em>does</em> sound good.</p>

<p>Matt, if I had been eating pea soup when I read that, it would have spurted out my nose. so funny.</p>

<p>Your comments are a little harsh. I really just was after some feed back about the design of the website. Sorry to have bothered you guys.</p>

<p>James: it's not harsh. You just joined a <em>photography</em> web site, and the first thing you did was immediately ignore the terms of service you just read when you set up your account, and as your first act, proceed to do what <em>everyone</em> does when they show up to drive traffic to external web sites. It happens dozens of times a week, and it's almost always an attempt to get this site's remarkably high visibility (which is a result of the very hard work of the site's moderators, who keep Google loving the place because link spam from joined-today-marketing-bots is stamped out more or less instantly, 24x7) working as a form of free advertising.<br /><br />If you really are a professional in the wider web services industry, you can't pretend not to know everything about that topic. It's just that most sites aren't as thoroughly policed as this one. If there was even a hint that your interests (and web site) were on topic, and that you hadn't just joined <em>photo</em>.net today to troll for exposure, you'd have had PN's usual warm and very helpful welcome. I've commented on untold numbers of "please review my web site" posts here, exactly because they were plainly topical (sites made by or for photographers) and coming from members that weren't advertising.</p>

<p>Okay.... I just assumed that a place full of people with a good eye for design would comment on how to improve the website design.</p>

<p>Also the links to external sites displayed on this website seem to us the rel="nofollow" attribute which means that I would not get any SEO "juice" from this website, thus invalidating your argument. </p>

<p>Once again I would like to apologies for any disruption this post has caused.</p>

<p>This thread comes up on the first page of any search on "blah d blah." </p>

<p>If this post comes up on the first page for blah d blah then it has done the opposite of building any reputation for the poster.<br>

When potential clients of Blah D Blah see this post it will make the company look lame.<br>

(I don't think it's lame to ask photog thoughts on your design, but your clients most likely will)</p>

<p>Also if he was trying to build link juice that's very hard to do with the nofollow. (having this post come up only hurts him ^see above^)<br>

Just my 2 cents.<br>

Crucify him if you will but I think he's already caused enough damage to himself.</p>

<p>If he were anyone else (other than someone in the profession of building other people's business web sites) there would have been not a peep. Rather, there would have been slack cut, or just a simple delete. I have no pity for people who absolutely know better (because it is their profession) than to do drive-by join-and-spam maneuvers.<br /><br />People who paint flame jobs on restored cars and who do tattoos for a living also have an eye for design. And posting web site design service links in <em>their</em> specialized discussion forums would be every bit as oily.</p>

<p>If I was to ask myself or even the designers of the website if they could see anything that needs improving of course they would say "No". This is why we perform market research to get feed back from external sources of how we could improve such designs, the knowledge we usually gain from such forum posts is then passed onto our clients. </p>

<p>We tend to ask for feedback from people that are in digital based industries rather than the automotive.</p>

<p>According to my cursory google search he's asked the same thing in the last few days on 3 or 4 other fora.</p>

<p>Testing a site is an important and integral step before paying for and launching a site. Yet it is often overlooked and seldom done extensively across different platforms, browsers, window sizes, etc. Web designers should include such testing as part of their service, and say so in their promotions and contracts. But few do. I would not hire one that does not do so.<br /> <br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=41252" target="_blank">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=41252</a></p>