I put it up for review a week ago and didn't get one response. I had to assume that no one had an opinion, or it was horrible. Made a few changes, and all tech problems are now taken care of. Still adding content for new users, but I would really appreciate some honest opinions. Clusterfox.org Thanks in advance.
The site still has problems. When using IE8, there are words overlapping each other and some of your graphics and vice versa. You also have a banner covering part of your domain name at the top. You may want to go to browsershots,org to see how it looks to people using various browsers.
Really ? I just looked at it in IE & Safari (as i have been for days) and it looks exactly the same as it does in Firefox. Either I'm blind, or Crazy. Does anyone else see these things ? I did see the overlapping image in Konqueror 3.5, but I don't think I will worry about that since I haven't seen anyone using that on any of my stats on any website...ever. But then again, most of my German traffic uses the Top 3. But if I'm missing something in IE FF, and Safari, I'd like to know...I don't see it and I have all 3 browsers open right this moment on identical monitors side by side and it looks exactly the same on all 3.(with of course minor characteristics of each browser)
Can you confirm that you actually see this in IE 8 and what are you viewing it on ? (Size monitor and that your zoom is set correctly). I have double and triple checked in IE, FF, Safari, on 19", 22", 11.5" Netbook, and 17" Laptop, had friends across the country look as well, and I am not getting back what you are reporting. Can you please say what size monitor, OS, and connection speed so that I can recreate what you are seeing?
With regard to SEO, you need more quality inbound links. You currently have 57 inbound links. Also, you should submit your Web site to DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory, and Best of the Web Blog Directory.
Yes, definitely. I am just building it, but I will be doing all of that and more, thanks. 57 links? That;s funny, I don't even know where those came from, as I haven't done any SEO.
You have some inbound links from ViralVideoChart.com, Digg.com, OpenCongress.org, and JohnQPundit.com. Please contact me directly if you need help with SEO.
I'm going to have to assume this is true, but why can't I see it when I look at it ? When I view the site on different sized monitors, and browsers, the banner is nowhere close to the title. Edited: OK, compressed header image, removed roll over on buttons, enabled g-zip, dropped a couple of plug ins that I wasn't planning to use, and dropped the header banner for now just to get some reviews about the site. I may also change text boxes to CSS it increase load time. Should be loading faster now, if you still have dial up, sorry, I'm not optimizing for that. If anyone is going to post anything about overlapping images or design errors, please post what size monitor you are using and what browser you were viewing it in so that I can recreate what you are seeing. thanks
Screenshot in Opera This is also what it looks like in IE, FF, and Safari. I see no difference. What exactly are you comparing it to and what do you see that is different? If someone tells me to check it in Ubuntu, I'm requesting to close the thread. For the purposes of TODAY, I just need a review of the site as a website. It's not going to be launching anytime soon. It's a test site of Wordpress MU/Buddypress. I just want a review of the site. This is only a test. This is all new stuff and a prelude to WP 3.0. I only care about FF, IE, and Safari today. If you are using some version of Epiphany and it doesn't look right, I don't care, no one uses Epiphany and I'm not changing anything for it to work in Epiphany. If you are viewing on a 15' monitor (or smaller). I don't care, I'm not adjusting for that. If you still have dial up internet. Sorry. I don't care. It's not made to be viewed fully in a mobile browser, so I don't care about that either, although I did check it in Opera Mini and it looks the same. I pulled it up on my iPod, and it looks the same. IF you feel the need to tell me about slow load times, bad concept, don't like the layout, you think it's a dumb idea, tell me the content is weak, you couldn't register a blog, didn't get your conformation email, don't like the available themes, sign up page sucks, suggest different functions, forum loads slow, or something to that affect, I am all ears, that is why I am here, but if you are going to run it though a code checker and tell me about every issue...I'm not interested. I already know. This is a test of the platform. There are code issues in the very software that runs the thing..I can't do anything about that. Pull up the Blogger website and there are 21 HTML errors, if you trust the code checker. I don't need that kind of nitpicking. I don't see any other reviews like that, and I've seen you guys give 20 "great job"s and "At-a-boy"s to some absolutely horrible websites on free hosted platforms and I never seen any of you post "There's HTML errors in Opera". I'm not asking for an SEO review. If the site sucks, tell me, but I'm not loading every possible browser in the world, just to get a simple review of the concept. If you have some ideas to it make it a better user experience for regular, non-webmaster people in the United States...I'd love to hear them For the record, there are some HTML tags broken on this forum, as well as some of the sites in the sigs of people who have posted in this thread,as well as every site I look at on the web, including CNN. It's not an excuse, but it happens. A broken HTML tag has never stopped people from enjoying a site or from making money.
Thanks for your useful posts. @deyounggerry, I couldn't see what you saw in IE 8, but I did look in IE 7 and it was jacked (but so was IE 7). Site is down for upgrades for an hour or so.
1) In FF latest official release version where it says "Join Clusterfox.org It's Free ! It's quick, You get your own blog & best of all. It's Free" the "It's Free" underlaps the the button to join. By underlap I mean the text is cut off by the button which appears on top. My display is set for 1440px width. At nearly full screen this alignment issue does not happen, but at 1024px width it does and as I decrease the width down to 800px it gets progressively worse. The site is using a fluid width layout though so this should be fixed so that resizing the browser doesn't cause this alignment issue. Fluid width layouts can be tough to get working smoothly and consistently, especially complex layouts like this one, but it is very worthwhile. 2) The search box in the top right has a minor alignment issue, it is a little bit to low and overlaps the divider line which should be under the search field. 3) I think the the links at the very bottom of the page are way too big - HUGE! Those links could be very small and it would be fine, but normal size would be ok too. Being giant seems very awkward though. 4) The daily show video must be rethought completely and presented differently. It doesn't fit within the box that should contain it and as you go bellow 1440px width the video sticks out more and more and overlaps content to the right. There is no easy solution to this though. In a fluid layout like yours the size of that video is simply going to be problematic. Maybe you need to use small inactive thumbnails instead of the actual video player and then when someone clicks play have the video display in some kind of lightbox. Or think of something else. As it is now though it seems sloppy and with such a busy layout, this kind of thing really hurts the design. 5) Under "interest" you have that section which auto rotates between six different contents, and the numbers 1-6 under that section so people can override the auto-rotation and choose a content for themselves. This just doesn't work very well though. Some of the contents that appear their go beyond the bottom of the section but there is no obvious way to scroll down, also the auto-rotation is a bit confusing, especially since there is the other auto-rotating section with the large images just above. On initial view users won't realize that "interest" section is auto-rotating it feels more like it is changing because the slow loading page is STILL loading. I realize it is cool, and probably rewarding to see it working but sometimes it is better to just cut things even though as the creator we like them. The site is really busy already and that section auto-rotating just makes it all much busier and more convoluted. The numbers 1-6 are not insightful either. Maybe a tabbed section their with informative tab titles and no auto-rotation would work better.. 6) The top auto-rotating section with the large images is fine, but you should make it so that without JS enabled something appears there, currently without JS that section is just empty. Have it default to one thing and then if the JS loads have it auto-rotate. I like the site, all in all it great work, but it is not finished and I think there are a few wrinkles yet to be ironed out. Hope this has helped and good luck. I only checked the main page, but I bookmarked the site and will check back in the future as it looks like it may become an interesting site.
Thanks linehand, yes, very helpful. Actually the template designer has come out with an update that fixes some of the very problems that you listed here...I haven't had a chance to upgrade yet, but I plan on getting it done over the weekend. I'll be honest, the site was a after thought and not well planned. It was just a regular blog, but I decided to try something with MU and see if it made any sense. Hopefully by Monday I can have those issues taken care of. I totally appreciate your review. Thanks.
OK, had to take some time away to tend to other projects and what do you know, i came back to find a ton of spam accounts registered and articles dumped all over the newly registered blogs.... What can I say, spammers are like roaches. I disabled the site so that I can make the changes in peace and install the necessary precautions, so this thread is dead. Thanks DP.