What Makes a good web site?

[jonathan95]

OK I see a lot of web sites coming and going and not many people signing up to peoples site.

so I want to ask you the around the web people what you think makes a good web site?

Content,
Names
anything what makes a good web site to you.

some of the things I think make a web site are:

a short and easy to remember name,
lots of content, not so much small posts I mean proper content, information rather than just:

Hi my name is kat and I live in a kat house, I like to eat cat food,

not too many area's I like lots of stuff but not just any stuff all shoved in there, I like a nice neat site, that is easy to get around.

SO come on people lets get posting what we all think makes a good web site.

[Seven of Nine]

I don't think the actual theme of the site matters, or how much content is on there, so long as it's accessable and well organised. You can have a part about health and another about Star Trek, so long as the people who view it know what's what.

Also, nothing too flashy. Big animations and flash effects annoy a lot of people, including me. Fine if you have one or two, but unless your site is on these things that's enough.

Another thing is that it should be well maintained. No starting one site and creating another on next week, while abandoning your first one. Work at it, and it should attract some visitors if it's worthy. Not all sites are going to be as big as this one, but if I have 10 different visitors to my site a month I'm happy

Hope this helps a little

[Leo Wyatt]

Yeah I learnt that the hard way. I am keeping just one site. It do not help to give up easily either. Got to have faith and patience.

[Hitchhiker]

The Internet is becoming one of the most preferred methods of communication across the world. There would be no Internet without websites and its rapid growing importance is due to the success of a number of websites that display how useful the Internet is in the twenty-first century. The majority of websites on the World Wide Web are dead and old sites that are unfinished or no longer functional; pornography; or basic sites that do not serve their function very well. By creating a site that is both interesting and well-structured, one can ensure that their website becomes popular and successful. Hopefully, such sites will follow the KISS principle.

Before discussing what makes a website good, it is important to establish what a website is in the first place, and the purpose of a website. A website, in this case, is a collection of digital pages that are linked to each other, and to which other external sites probably link as well. A website's purpose is a bit more complicated. At the most fundamental level, however, a website should serve information to its visitors. Having established that information is a key part of a website, then a website needs useful and interesting information that will attract visitors about a particular subject. Preferably, this information should be served with as much grammatical accuracy as possible. Then it is well on the way to becoming a good website.

Once a website has information, it needs to be communicated to the visitor in some way. In the original days of the Web, it was difficult to construct websites as the Internet and its technology was still in its infancy. Unfortunately, this is probably what led to the "browser wars" of the nineties, where Netscape and Microsoft introduced proprietary extensions. This competition is what fragmented the Web and makes it so hard for web designers to actually create nice websites.

So a website needs good information and a pleasing design, however a wrench has been thrown into the works with this introduction of "browser wars." Apparently, one browser will display one's website differently than another! There is no way to fully prevent this, the Web is, like any medium, subjective. However, one can work toward preventing it by following the World Wide Web Consortium's web standards. And what a can of worms that is.

Simply put, HTML and CSS have standards designed to make the web accessible. This is the meat of my philosophy, and the point of my post. Some may say that by coding to these standards, it will look bad in Internet Explorer, which is currently the Web's most popular browser and the most notorious one to disobey the standards. In response, I say that by coding for accessibility, one is not leaving out anyone, whether they view one's site from Internet Explorer or from a PDA. I do compromise on some things, but whenever possible, I code to standards.

Not many people have the time or inclination to learn how to code proper HTML and CSS. This does not mean they should decide to not create a website. It's not difficult to learn, but if they don't want to learn it, then there are always other options. Plenty of What You See Is What You Get editors will produce nice code (Dreamweaver is good, FrontPage not so much). Or, one could always bug a friend to do it. Regardless of how one starts out, if one is aiming to make one's website successful and long-lived, then one needs to devote time to the website, love it and cherish it and nurture it. Furthermore, pressure must be put on companies such as Microsoft, AOL, and Mozilla, to start and continue developing to web standards so that such compliancy worries become a thing of the past.

On a more personal note, I am somewhat annoyed by the tendency to continuously create a large volume of sites that inevitably die for two reasons: one, the concept is not original and is probably created just for the sake of creating a site; two, people are probably still trying to decide whether or not to join one's last site. There is certainly nothing wrong with doing this, nor am I criticising anyone in particular. However, seeing a topic "join my new forum" and then two days later, "join my other new forum" can get annoying--if one is busy creating all these forums, it leaves me to wonder how much time they are spending maintaining the other ones.

A website needs to keep it simple, look good, preferably have nice code (but I'm a purist, so what do I know?), and be interesting. These don't guarantee a successful website, but they do go a long way to attracting visitors who will promote the website and make it a success. All websites start somewhere, they do not spring up as an overnight hit. Most importantly, it is the effort and time one puts into one's creation. "If you build it, they will come."

[Seven of Nine]

Hear hear

[nadia]

I have allways wanted to make a website, but I dont know what it would be about

[Hitchhiker]

[nadia]

[Joey]

hey if u want a phpbb forum i can help

[nadia]

But what would it be about?

[Joey]

eating ponys, ST, SW, anything really, look at insignia

[nadia]

Eating ponys

I dunno, but when Im ready I'll talk to you ok?

[Joey]

ok cool

[Waverider9.9]

[borgslayer]

What makes a good website is this.

Good Easy Intro - Understandable One.
" Welcome to Star Trek Inc I hope you enjoy your stay Star Trek fans. "

Easy Info - Simple Info
" Here at Star Trek Inc we provide you with information on Star Trek related products. "

Content & Design
" Easy and readable contents. " " Uncluttered design and choosing the right color makes the difference. "

This is how simple it is.

[~Voyager Fanatic~]

What i think makes a good site:

-Neat and not too colourful.
-Good english
-The content must be interesting and not too boring.

-More to come soon.