Website review for eLanceNetwork.com [Archive]

wonshikee

01-14-2007, 10:23 PM

Hello I have just finished my new site, and would like some feedback from anyone who wouldn't mind.

http://www.meetcoders.com

Any feedback is helpful, thank you.

The name has been changed, I think this one is better for the site's purpose.

wonshikee

01-16-2007, 09:30 AM

Anyone?

jamessy

01-16-2007, 10:48 AM

Hi there's quite a few errors in your mark-up according to w3c validator.

I like the layout etc. but maybe use another colour somewhere as it looks a bit too much like a sky with lots of rectangle clouds. Maybe change the colour of the menu with 'home register login help'??

Also, could do with absolute links to all your pages at the bottom for internal link count in search engines

web design and hosting, Scotland (http://www.xlweb.co.uk)

bathurst_guy

01-17-2007, 01:30 AM

Boring, cramped, old fashioned.

bulgarian388

01-17-2007, 02:04 AM

You don't have a DTD for the page. Your using proprietary attributes on the body tag, use CSS instead. Code is poorly written. You have either:

width=800

Or:

width='800'

First you can use CSS to completely get rid of those, and second for other attributes not controlled by CSS use double quotes for the values:

width="800"

In your script tags the language property is obsolete, use the type property only.

Too much table use, you haven't used a single layer?! You didn't even close the body or html tags.

You need to use CSS to control how the content is presented, doesn't seem like you've done so.

Use layers as much as possible over tables. You haven't done that either.

Your current content to code ratio is very bad, if you expect to see your site rank up on search engines you need to reduce and clean up the amount of code you have, as well as validate it. Search engines frown on porly designed/structured sites.

Here is a quick sample of a valid page to start you off:

XHTML 1.1:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title></title>
<meta name="keywords" content="" />
<meta name="description" content="" />
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="javaScript.js"></script>
<style type="text/css">@import url("css/styleSheet.css");</style>
</head>

<body>
<form action="" id="theForm" method="post">
<div class="bodyLayer">
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

CSS:

.bodyLayer {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
width: 800px;
}

Hope that helps you get on the right track. Also use the W3C Validator to keep track of your code. You could also try the HTML Tidy extention for Firefox.

wonshikee

01-18-2007, 11:25 PM

I have redid the site look completely.

Please have a look and tell me if there's anything I can do to improve it.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

bulgarian388

01-18-2007, 11:56 PM

Looking much better, style wise and code wise. Still use quite a bit of tables, but its looking better. That background does a good job. One thing though, on the layers with class "space", you can write the content out with a <p>. To indent it just do this in the style sheet:

p {
text-indent: 16px;
}

This will act as a global control, and will indent the content in all <p> tags, so becareful how you use it. I noticed that the left navigation you have is actually links wrapped in <p> tags. Thats one thing that the style above might break. Instead you should use <ul>'s and <li>'s instead.

Good job on validating the site as well. :) :)

wonshikee

01-19-2007, 02:13 PM

Looking much better, style wise and code wise. Still use quite a bit of tables, but its looking better. That background does a good job. One thing though, on the layers with class "space", you can write the content out with a <p>. To indent it just do this in the style sheet:

p {
text-indent: 16px;
}

This will act as a global control, and will indent the content in all <p> tags, so becareful how you use it. I noticed that the left navigation you have is actually links wrapped in <p> tags. Thats one thing that the style above might break. Instead you should use <ul>'s and <li>'s instead.

Good job on validating the site as well. :) :)

Thank you very much, you have been the biggest help for me thus far.

I honestly never knew about layers and all that, only knowledge of HTML I had was from ~9 years ago when I was learning HTML for fun. Thus my usage of tables and deprecated HTML.

This site is a good learning experience for me.

bulgarian388

01-19-2007, 03:00 PM

Np. Glad to be of help. :)

If you want to expand your knowledge on HTML, CSS and those other things that make up the interweb, here are some places that I visit to help me solve a problem or to learn a new or better way to do something:

http://alistapart.com/ - General Web Development
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/ - CSS
http://developer.mozilla.org/ - General, but I use it for the JavaScript info
http://www.pixel2life.com/ - General, but very handy on layout design, quite a bit of Photoshop tutorials.

Enjoy! :)

wonshikee

01-20-2007, 01:04 AM

Np. Glad to be of help. :)

If you want to expand your knowledge on HTML, CSS and those other things that make up the interweb, here are some places that I visit to help me solve a problem or to learn a new or better way to do something:

http://alistapart.com/ - General Web Development
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/ - CSS
http://developer.mozilla.org/ - General, but I use it for the JavaScript info
http://www.pixel2life.com/ - General, but very handy on layout design, quite a bit of Photoshop tutorials.

Enjoy! :)

Also, I tried using list for my navigation bar, and far as I can tell it's not worth the trouble.

I implemented it for the top nav, but due to the closeness of the left nav spacing, the IE bug has become too troublesome.

I've tried the 20 different fixes for it and none of them worked for my IE 6.

laonong

01-21-2007, 12:07 AM

I think you want to make a similar website like getacoder.com?

wonshikee

01-21-2007, 09:12 PM

Yes that's what I am working on.

laonong

01-21-2007, 10:46 PM

It's not a new idea so you must have to make smth diffirent or peoples won't consider ur site.Do u plan to set up premium member service?

wonshikee

01-22-2007, 06:14 PM

It's not a new idea so you must have to make smth diffirent or peoples won't consider ur site.Do u plan to set up premium member service?

Yes there is a premium membership type system.

nitrexoxide

01-22-2007, 11:58 PM

It looks abit square to me, especially with the logo using other shapes. Try rounding off the menu bar or adding shapes to make it look interesting.

wonshikee

01-27-2007, 04:32 PM

I tend to think the square structure makes the site look more organized and structured well.