Review: whatsmostpopular.com

[scottdizzle]

When I saw no one had www.whatsmostpopular.com I knew I had to buy it. Basically here's a run down of what this site is for. Webmasters submit content to the site, users come click stuff. Every hour new media is posted on the main page.. and whatever has the most clicks on the site shows up on the main page as the 'most popular' item! So, the URL of the site is also like the definition of the website itself!

So far webmasters have added just over 3000 things! I redesigned it slightly last week cause for some reason it started falling apart. So, everything is all shiny and working again.

Just in case anyone thinks it.. it's true.. I loosely based the layout from digg.com, but not very much.. I just liked their blue, white, and green theme..

Anyway, here it is! www.whatsmostpopular.com

And here's my usual little screenshot I like to include:

[Bagi Zoltán]

If i were you maybe i would use the 100% of the width of the screen. I think it is a bit crowded in its actual state.
If i were you i would add this code to the .htaccess file in order to solve the canonical issue, since now you link to the index.php instead of the domain by the home navigation link.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
# index.php to /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]

Good luck!

[scottdizzle]

Thanks homie. What does your .htaccess code do? Is it for SEO optimization or for future problems with paths in the URL? The only thing I have in my .htaccess file now is a redirect for whatsmostpopular.com to www.whatsmostpopular.com

[Bagi Zoltán]

The code will redirect the domain.com/index.php URL to the domain.com/ and arrange the current canonical issue.

[businessservicesuk]

First impressions: Were poor, the site lacks any kind of order, it looks more like a school project than a professional website.

Visitors: Displaying lines like
Well, the site is pretty self explanatory. It's full of links to interesting media from all over the web. If you can't figure out how to use this site then you're an idiot.

Attracting visitors to any site is difficult, to then use abusive comments seems a little odd.

Content: Apart from haphazard links the homepage lacks any unique content, even a few lines would help.

Browsers: The site has not been checked on all browsers as there are errors in IE7

Privacy: You are taking data from the general public, you should openly display a privacy policy.

Tags: You meta tags throughout the whole site are very poor.

Summary: I really like the concept of the site, however it fails to deliver for me, it needs organising and categorising. Thumbs down for me sorry.

Saying that I wish you well with the site

Pete

[bbrock32]

The site seems very confusing and isn't very intuitive.There is a lot of text in a small area , which make it difficult to read.Also some other font would make the site more appealing to the eye.Good luck!

[scottdizzle]

I suppose it shows that it's one of my least favorite of my sites.

Well, the site is pretty self explanatory. It's full of links to interesting media from all over the web. If you can't figure out how to use this site then you're an idiot.

Attracting visitors to any site is difficult, to then use abusive comments seems a little odd.

But it has visitors... even webmasters that repeatedly visit daily. I like doing things different or out of the ordinary. It's just a joke. I'm glad it gets attention and a response though because the whole idea was to catch some attention... and it apparently works Well, thanks for your opinions though.. however, I like it how it is. It makes me smile.

I mean come on how far backwards am I supposed to bend for this site? The only purpose it serves is to send traffic to other webmasters for free. I hardly get anything out of it. Which brings me to the next thing:

Privacy: You are taking data from the general public, you should openly display a privacy policy.

There will never be a privacy disclaimer written. I don't taken ANYTHING from the general public. Webmasters add their links to the site, write their description, and it shows up hyperlinked on my site.. why would I redundantly tell them, "hey just so you know I'm adding content from your site to my site" they'd just think, "yeah no kidding, I put it there"

But, all in all, you're all right.. the site could be better.. as could any site. I appreciate your suggestions.. many of them I will rework into the site next time I work with it. For now, it's not on the top of my priority list. At least I have a great place to come for a checklist of things recommended by some people that could be better, and for that I thank you much

[businessservicesuk]

Scott,

The privacy policy was in regards to the mailing list you have. If I subscribe am I going to get 1000's of spam emails, this kind of thing.

At least you viewed the comments as constructive, this is a good sign. A lot of people become irritated when negative comments are made.

If you ever want me to look at any of your projects, you can always mail me through my sig link

Pete

[scottdizzle]

Thanks bud no I'm not irritated I mean that's what this section is all about.. constructive criticism.. if visitors don't like.. then it must need help

No if you sign up on the mailing list you won't receive spam cause I manually write the newsletters and honestly I haven't even sent 1 newsletter out yet lol

It'll just once in a while send the top 3 or 5 newest links webmasters have added.

Also, since you've written your review I've thought of ways to clean it up. You're right about the irritating 'no new content' on the main page.. it's frustrating cause it has to display the most popular item on the main page.. But I have found a way to display the most popular item for the month rather than of all time.. cause I realize once something has an insane amount of views then no other links have a chance to catch up.. also I was thinking of putting that link on the top left and then showing the main content area as all the 'new' content added.. plus I don't like how I gapped everything.

[businessservicesuk]

Scott, you misunderstood, I am sure you would not pass your subscribers personal data to a 3rd party. However this is why you need a privacy policy to explain this. Any site taking data should have one.

If you could slap all these links into categories and simply select your favorites for the homepage it would be a start to putting some order to the site.

[Swiftie]

Pretty good site, but how did you come up with that color palette?

[golferstube.com]

I actually like the site. It was easy to navigate around. I would just try to make it less cluttered. there is alot of text that i dont feel like reading through.

[like5]

looks nice but it loads slowly reminds me of digg overall good job

[stewart]

Not too bad, it took quite a while to load for me, might want to look into reducing the amount of requests that are made to the server...

lol, like the comment said above, reminding of digg , in fact greatly inspired, no ? no big deal though, good job!

[zeruel]

pretty nice.... i love the color and the top header... but you need to organize it a lil bit...

[Wing Chun]

screenshot looks very action packed - made me want to check out the site - but when i visited the site, the first thing i noticed was the large size of the text on the main horizontal nav,... and the corner images took a while to load. maybe need better hosting, or need to optimise ur graphics for faster page loading?

good luck :p

[TheFriend]

Your site:

- has a nice design, good color sheme.......
- when i scroll down, there is too much white border (at the end of the site),
(there could be links, pictures, more text, .....)

- the top has lots of colour and it makes the footer look like it's missing something
- the use of white space and soft colours in the footer is a nice idea, but needs more padding around the bold link text in order to make it work pleasantly, i think
- site has huge potential, but needs some work on the layout
- PR4 homepage - quite impressive - obviously well marketed - the site could go far

- but with 102 markup errors on the homepage alone, the search engines will rank u down on accessibility

- coming from a fellow webmaster's perspective, i think the site has been set up purely to promote linkvertise.org

- and see the footer in linkvertise.org - see how the padding around the two horizontal lines make it all the more pleasant to view

- my best advise is make the markup validate, then put about 20px more space between the footer linkvertise ads and the " This site was designed by..."

- ...and 20px between the horizontal navigation and the linkvertise ads in the header too

(unless your aim is to make people accidentally click the ads )

HELP

[oldstocks]

I like it but the phasing of green to white in the left and right borders makes me believe the template was for a shorter site.