Bad HTML

When I sat down to write this page I thought about my own pages and what annoys me on the net, then I went and found some web pages on bad html (see the links at the bottom).
This page isn't here to rubbish anyone's site, or to make mine look good. But think about these with an open mind, and think how many of the top web sites on the net don't have any of the below subjects on their pages.

At the end of the day it is YOUR web site, and YOU decide what goes on it.

If you have or want to make a 'vanity page', a site about you and your interests and want all the bells and whistles, don't bother reading this.

This is here for people that want to make their pages user friendly for all to see, not just a select few friends.

Everybody has different tastes, likes and dislikes so you will never please everyone. But when you make a slow, hard to navigate, demanding personal website with all the little knick-knacks, don't expect people to give out your URL or even come back to your site. There are billions of web sites out there, if they can't find it on your site quickly and easily they will go somewhere else, if your site locks up their browser and/or computer don't expect them back.

These are in no order:

1. No alt tags on images
2. Image tags without height and width
3. Bad navigation (or none)
4. Slow loading pages (over sized graphics, Java applets etc)
5. Flashing text
6. Scrolling text
7. Stating what screen size to view with
8. Stating what browser to view your site
9. Frames - bad use of frames
10. Nagging to sign your guest book
11. JavaScript messages at bottom left screen (status bar)
12. Overuse of Java, ie applets etc
13. Background music you can't turn off
14. Image maps - bad use of
15. Forced downloads like fonts, programs, cursors etc
16. Broken links/dead links
17. Disabling the back button
18. Rainbow text (multi coloured)
19. Mouse cursors, trailing cursors
20. No use of the bgcolor tag with slow loading background patterns

Go for a ride into bad web pages

(click here to break out of frames)

Was that fun or what? Well I hope you enjoyed it, it was actually hard to make, hard to unteach myself, but glad you survived it. Can you see now why these things are bad? Would you like a demo on more? Just kidding

So, some things to remember:

If you put music on your web page, make it small and give an option to turn it off.
Animations look good, but do you need them? Keep an eye on your graphic sizes.
When using images, always, always use the width, height and alt tags with it, not only will it help your pages load faster, it will help your visitors if they, the graphics should for some reason not load.
Use tables when you can, they can and do make your life so much easier.
Do you really need frames? Like anything, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.
Proof read and spell check your pages (I have to do this more myself)
Update your site, if you don't look at your site no one else will.
Don't use 'Under Construction' graphics or text, every site on the net is under construction, its a never ending thing.

Layout and navigation and content are the 3 main key to a good website.

Build your site as if you were using a 28 or 36k modem on a 640 x 480 on a 14" screen. The 3 most common sizes being used today is 640 x 480, 600 x 800 and 1024 x 768. Base it on the smaller size so to fit all sizes. Not everyone has the latest gear, I still use a old pent 90mhz with a 14.4 modem to test my sites, it's slow but reliable.

Remember there is a browser war going on out there, not all HTML tags work in all browsers, if the browser doesn't support the tag you want it will be ignored, so keep the fancy stuff for non important things.

Ok on with the other stuff:

When I finished these pages, Netscape and Internet explorer offered updates for their browsers, Netscape 7 and IE 6 were released.

HTML is now about to take a turn itself, now incorporating XML, creating XHTML, it's been out since the beginning of 2000 but isn't widely used yet. The main changes are tags to be lower case, all tags must be closed, including image tags and <br> tags (<br /> for backwards compatibility).
Certain tags, things like <font>, <center>, <u> etc are being phased out now in favor of style sheets, which is good, but style sheets aren't fully accepted on browsers yet, which is bad. The CSS this site mentions work in NS4.7 and up.

Back to what this page is about ...

What is really a bad web page? I think the main cause of 'bad web pages' is laziness, every web page can be made for the two main browsers very easily, but people are to lazy to check their codes, or insist on blinding or making the viewer work to read or view their web page. I am finding the more knowledge I learn, the less of it I use on web pages, I like to think I'm following in the footsteps of the greats. Look at all the top web sites (not porn sites) and see how many use applets, and flashing text, scrolling (annoying) messages. Even the makers of Java (Sun) don't over do it like most newbies do, do you know who gave us JavaScript? Netscape did, do you see them with lava lamps and rainbow text? So please think of others because you are making it for them.

Most things work in Netscape and Internet Explorer version 4 and up, and there is still many people using version 4 browsers.

I know what your thinking, so the older browsers and small screen sizes only make up a small part', true they do, but for news of your site to get out word of mouth is best, (spamming your site through email is like begging) one person will tell one person, they will tell another, they will tell someone ......... But sadly bad news travels faster than good. If you are selfish (for one you wouldn't be reading this) go ahead and make 'your' dream web page, don't think of what systems others have and use.

Ok enough of my babbling, here are some web sites on bad HTML, or rather what you shouldn't do.