5 Sickening Habits of Mainstream Websites
Forbes, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Mens Health, you name it. The big guys think that just because they entered in the game early, or because they have some popular print publication backing them up, they can get away with whatever they want.
Screw that!
They better start changing and listening more to the users, else I am sure their traffic will go down hill. Here are 5 habits from mainstream websites that make me sick.
1. Breaking stories in many different pages to increase the number of impressions
Have you ever seen those “Top 25 Web Celebrities” or “Top 20 Richest People in the World” lists on Forbes? The number of items on the list is the number of pages that they use to display the information…. Slide shows they call it. I call it “trying to get as many page views as possible from each visitor to make more advertising money, because we are some greedy folks!”
And this practice is not limited to lists. If you take a look on Wired or PC World, you will notice that even 500 word stories get broken down into two or more pages!
Come on guys, make it easy for the user and put everything in the same page.
2. Using splash pages with ads
When I visit a website that greets me with a huge ad instead of the homepage, I always scratch my head and think: “Did I just type businessweek.com or annoythefuckoutofme.com?”
Internet users want things quick, because that is the way they think. They want to be able to scan the information. To filter it. To search for specific bits of data. If upon coming to your website they will only see a huge ad and a link where they need to click to see the “real” website, heck, they will just go somewhere else.
3. Not linking to the sources or mentioned websites
Until some time ago there was an argument among webmasters stating that if you wanted visitors to stick inside your site, you should never link to external pages. This has been proved to be a myth. If visitors like your content, they can always hit the “Back” button on their browsers, or pay a visit again in the future.
It is a myth, but I guess we forgot to tell mainstream media websites about that. In fact, behemoths like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times rarely link out to other sites. What is worse, sometimes they won’t even link to the website they are covering on the article, and the reader must try to guess the URL or search for it on Google. Crazy….
4. Using pop-up ads
It is 2008, almost 2009 for the matter of fact, and some websites are still shooting devilish pop-ups on our faces?
Picture this: you just found a link about a cool story, you click and start reading it, it seems interesting, when you are starting to understand it BANG! A pop-up appears encouraging you to take a survey or buy something.
Most of the times the thing is even moving around and you need to chase it with your mouse in order to close it.
Gosh I hate pop-ups.
5. Requiring registration to access the content
Lets put this straight, when I browse around the Internet, I want to get information, not the other way around. Do not force me to register up and leave my email address and other personal details unless it is absolutely necessary (i.e. unless what you offer is so good that I will bear with the pain of the registration).
This thing is so annoying that you even have websites around that are specialized in providing Internet users with valid usernames and passwords for those sites, so that they can skip the registration process. The most famous one is bugmenot.com.
It’s even worse when you look at behavior of large companies when they’re installing applications on your desktop. Companies like AOL, Microsoft, Norton and so many others have had a history (and continue to do so) with taking liberties smaller companies would be tarred&feathered for.
The public outcry (in addition to lawsuits) have curtailed this behavior but even so, they push the legal limits whenever they can.
May be not on Forbes but
6 : register to leave a comment.
7 : have to scroll down to find the post because of to many adds at the beggining
It’s true that all these non-sense is deteriorating greatly the web browsing experience.
My personal pet-peeve is the banners with dumb smilies which yells something stupid and annoying at random intervals.
It’s even more frustrating when I have to cycle between my 30 opened tabs to find out which site is vomiting an aggressively annoying “HEYYYYYYY!!!!” … “HEYYYYYYY!!!!” thought my speakers.
Usually I close the site immediately and never come back. Putting irritating sounds in web banners should be a crime.
What kind of asshole is paying to advertise smilies anyway, get a life.
I was going to write about this same topic…
6. Writing “Continue reading AFTER THE JUMP….” seriously? You think because you so cleverly put an ad mid-paragraph that I’m going to leave thinking the article’s finished?
The most annoying thing a website does is the auto video play on ESPN.com.
There are so many times that I’m sitting somewhere in class, forgot to turn my speakers off and ESPN comes blaring through.
These are all things that bug the crap out of me too! I also hate sneakily styled adsense ads that are disguised as content.
I especially hate the registration (conversion) forms. It is not a legitimate conversion if I’m merely giving you info to read your content. Hello spammer?
Sites that do these things run me off before I ever read any content. And I make a note to never return.
Agreed. 100% assholes.
The sloppiest ways to get more page views and ad-clicks.
Some very good points to consider. Also a good lesson on what not to do with your own blog or website.
Thanks,
Douglas Wade
Couldn’t help but notice you missing number 3 on your own site. You didn’t link to any of the sites you were talking about. So now if I want to see any of the stuff you’re talking about, I have to either google them or try guessing the URL.
I am going to implement all of these in my fleet of sites…. right now! Screw you.
Brilliant ideas.
Woot! Here comes the advertising money!
Though I agree that pop-up ads are massively annoying, I have issues with several of the other points. For example “put it all on the same page, guys”. Especially with large articles and detailed lists, this would make page load times far higher than necessary, especially if (like many people) you may not want to read the entire article; perhaps you only want a few general details, or you begin reading it only to discover that you’re not as interested as you thought you were. Believe it or not, some people still have 56k connections, and even for the majority of broadband users, unnecessarily long page-loads are plain annoying, and will more than often result in me just leaving the site.
Splash pages with ads. Though ALL advertising annoys me, like it or not, bills need to be paid. Look on the bright side, if there were less splash pages, there’d be far more popup ads. It’s the lesser of two evils, especially when you consider that advertising becomes more and more of a necessity the bigger and more popular the site gets.
Not linking to the sources is possibly more than a little nitpicky; how hard it is to use google or find the site yourself? If a newspaper was talking about a bank in London it’s unlikely they’d include the address. Furthermore, why should the article writers be interested in giving the sites more traffic?
As for registration requirements (rest assured i am waiting to bask in the irony when THIS site asks me to register to post a comment), though it’s a bit of a stupid thing to do, it’s hurting them more than me. If you want to access the content that badly then you’ll be inclined to register anyway. If it was just a passing thought you’ll more than likely just bounce off the site and forget about it. Though i’d like to say “it’s their loss”, it’s not really, as there is a purpose for it: BECAUSE the majority of random users passing through simply can’t be bothered to register and access the content, it greatly reduces traffic and server expenses, allowing the hosts to use less ads, ironically helping combat two other points on your list.
Though the way many content-hosting websites work feels like it could be better, it’s significantly more complex than you seem to imply with this list; if they could make it easier for the viewers without loss, why wouldn’t they? It’s a complex digital eco-system, and if you want the content these sites are offering, you’ll have to live with the way it’s presented.
Are you gonna pay to use these sites? No? Well then STFU. You have no rights
Well at least I know now that I am not the only out there that thinks the same thing. All of those points that you mentioned are utterly annoying. Especially the constant ads and making one post 20 pages long just to read it to get page views. Also, I can’t understand why a major newspaper needs a subscription to read their articles online. What is with that but submit it to Google news? For the whole world to see. Just imagine what the web will look like in the future we will probably need to see ads just to boot our computers.
I had to use tip number five to post this comment.
The pop-up is a big pet peeve. I hate having to register to leave a comment or to read the content.
One that annoys me to no end is when a website’s every fifth word is a double-underlined mouseover popup minefield…
Alright, I understand trying to make a buck from people reading your site… but I never understood why people never linked to sites… especially when the articles were about the site. Weak.
1 Sickening Habit of indy-websites.
1) The use of the not-word, ‘ORLY?’
Absolutely love this post. All points noted are sooooooo true. Problem is, I’m not certain which one I agree with the most. They’re all so spot on it’s hard to pick which point is my favorite.
I agree with you on everything, except #1.
Do you have any idea how crappy the margins are at mainstream websites? Ad spending is getting lower and lower. Yeah, it may be annoying to have to click through 5 pages to read a story — but please, it’s *free*.
Besides, you can just click on the “Print this story” link, and you’ll almost always get a single-page version (with no ads).
You do realize that you’re breaking your own rules, right?
Once you’ve gone over the list, read that opening paragraph through again.
Timestamps on content! My pet peeve is finding articles or information that is time-sensitive, but not finding the date it was written!
Couldn’t agree more. Especially the part about breaking an article up into 10 pages.
The thing to remember with impressions and increasing them is that they often charge advertisers based on the number of impressions. And if they can inflate this number, well…
This is why as an advertiser you should never pay a rate based on number of impressions. Let’s say a one page article is spread over 3 pages, you’re then paying 3 times as much. Not only that, but all the impressions between the first and last are very unlikely to be worthless in terms of ads. The user is in the middle of an action (reading the article) and are not interested in moving on. At least not yet…
I couldn’t agree more. The sites that have obtrusive pop-ups or require a registration – I generally don’t even bother with, I just search for another site with the information. So they are getting the opposite effect of what they’re hoping for.
If you worked in advertising you’d realize exactly what all that means, and how “important” it is to them an clients.
Not working in marketing you just get to see how annoying it is, and how this whole advertising culture is a bunch of bullshit that needs to end. Innovation has been killed by marketing. It is a pack of lies more often than not… Too many bad apples in the bunch.
How about those ads that when you go to the site all of sudden in ear bleeding volume say, “Congratulations, you have choosen to receive….” I hate that when I’m at the coffee shop.
i noticed that on number 3 you didn’t link to any of the sites you mentioned.
irony.
Not linking to a site mentioned in a news article may be a business decision. They may want to talk about the site, but not necessarily drive traffic to it (not without being paid anyway.)
Wow, I never realized this stuff pissed me off so much. I agree with tom and say that I hate the keyworded and linked words that have absolutely nothing to do with the article. Sometimes it is even that word in a completely different context.
One page, printable, right to the story.
Well, whatever I am not one to click banner ads unless they promise me 2 or more ipods or a larger penis. I feel those are the only legit ones left. *sob*
Making blogs about what is wrong with other websites. Especially when including annoyances that every web surfer is annoyed by. ESPECIALLY web surfers who read blogs at a site called TechCult.
The registration one is the worst. I just leave instantly.
On the not linking to the site issue: I don’t like it when a website links to their own content instead of the site they are talking about. Techcrunch does this a lot. They will send you to their own profile page of Myspace instead of linking you to the actual Myspace page. This gets to me.
One that I’ve found very annoying is when sites have video ads that play before the video does. Not only that but that the actual video doesn’t cache during the time the ad is showing so you have to wait to cache the video TWICE.
You left out the most annoying web site feature of them all:
FIXED WIDTH PAGES
Stop with the wasting of browser window space because your web designers can only use Dreamweaver or whatever crap CMS you’re using which wastes half the available browser space and crams all the content into a small area.
Managing that encroachment is becoming more and more tiresome. With television commercials and print ads, we develop a sense of rhythm and expectation. We know the promos are coming in a few minutes and will last for 120 seconds, or that the next page is dominated by some Tequiza-sponsored contest. These five habits are annoying precisely because they jam up the flow of our online experience. They hit us when we’re in the zone, or derail our attempts to get further information. Until we develop a tolerance, these will be the Web’s proverbial nails and chalkboard.
Multiple split pages are so annoying. I found one recently that had the biggest ad possible inline too so there were only about 120 words on a page.
install adblock,
all your problems solved.
I can deal with breaking long stories if they are long enough to justify it. They’d be better off with a business model that increased the value of their ad impressions.
Splash pages? I just close that browser tab. Most of them are Flash anyways. I love Flash ads… I don’t have a Flash player installed.
No links? When I design a site, I instruct links to open in a new window… unless my purpose for the article was to get people to that site. When I read, I always open links in new tabs and shut the tab I’m reading when done. If I need to search for a page, however, I enter the information in the search bar right away.
Pop up ads? Instant window close.
Register for content? I use preprepared bogus identity information. I also create a unique email address for each site that requests one. I get total control over mail to that address – filtering, blocking – along with the ability to trace Spam and Ham back to the site to which I originally gave the address.
Yarly.
Waah! I want my information now! I don’t want to pay a penny! And I don’t want to look at any stinkin’ ads! Or I’ll take my business (which consists of nothing) elsewhere!
Fuck you.
I would have to say that not linking and splash pages are by far my biggest issue. Also, are those “if you like this… then you might like this…” boxes that come up when you mouseover a word. In theory I like them. I practice, annoying.
Along with those listed in the article I am very annoyed by sites that start to play a sound file in the adds as well with no way to turn them off. You go to site to read a news article or some such thing and then a moment later you get—Congratulations, you have been selected for the exclusive offer of buying (Some junk)…”
I had a site start playing a video commercial with no way to stop or lower the volume other than on my laptop which then makes it hard to hear my music or IM ding – way to go with the top thinking there people.
Cheers
we have quite large articles so er break them into pages because you would wind up with a never-ending long article to scroll and just like a line-break, a new paragraph or a new section a new page helps to ease the flow of reading. it’s important to get the fealing of having red something thus measuring the progress of the reading.
so there is a sense in breaking long texts down into pages just like a book would, completely abandoning pages is not the solution.
Am I the only one who went to annoythefuckoutofme.com?
It doesn’t exist BTW.
i hate wordpress snapviews … damn annoying … and no easy way to turn ‘em off …
Those aren’t mainstream websites, those are mainstream publications that have a website. The fact that they are a publication first gives them a completely different mentality my friend. For got sakes, they still use those annoying blow-ins. Who fills those out anyway? We all know it won’t work online, but they won’t work online unless someone can convince them to start thinking in a new way.
The most frustrating thing is that they seem to be able to get away with it. If my site had a giant ad w/ a small “click here to actually view the content” I’d lose readers like it was going out of style.
And I can understand breaking posts apart if they’re insanely long, but none of them are. As your example cites, it’s usually just a list of dumb celebs and each one gets their own short page.
I don’t understand why they can’t use their site to supplement their already existing publication. Like have the print article be “top 25 blah blah” and then at the end say “see our web site for the 25 that didn’t make it to the list”. They seem to be determined to overly-monetize their web presence because they’re afraid it’ll take away from the publication.
Here are the top 10 reasons why this list is correct:
#1: People can see right through tricks and deceptions to the real intent, does everyone think that they can pull the wool over the reader’s eyes?
#2: |——-|
| this |
| popup |
|——-|
– – Page | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
(Please register to see more pages)
“Internet users want things quick, because that is the way they think.” Yeah, they also want things free so give a site owner a break and allow him to make some money too.
No advertising, no free content…
PS web-speak like ‘ORLY’ really is annoying as Anon points out…
I know! It’s all just internet marketers trying to make money! Try finding your favorite band’s lyrics sometime and all you get is ringtone pages and cell phone ads! Phuck the piranhas!
@Anonymous (11): “For example “put it all on the same page, guys”. Especially with large articles and detailed lists, this would make page load times far higher than necessary”
This would only be the case if the actual content – the text – would weigh more than all the markup, images, scripts etc. I don’t think there are many pages on the web where this is true.
Agreed that all that is annoying. But to play devil’s advocate, how are these companies supposed to make money to pay for all the content they publish?
What would you find to be an acceptable way to monetize their investment?
Seriously, just asking.
Newspapers, especially, are in dire straits and I have no idea how many of them can survive.
Those truly are sickening!
I’m glad my site doesn’t use any of those “tactics”…
Some of these lists look like great reads – looks like a new site to add to my subscriptions..
I recommend FireFox (use the block image function for all adds you run into) with the FlashBlock and NoScript add on plugin’s.
That way you now have control over which sites can run java script, java applets, flash and display adds.
I like to open as many tabs as I can when browsing so after 10-20 or so pages I would no longer own my computer, its simply at 95% CPU running all of that “site add spam”, using my PC was like swimming in toffee.
So I’d had enough, I wanted my PC and internet bandwidth back. Its a bit clunky but a significantly more secure, safe and faster way to view the web.
Great link baiting, plus the fact that you make me give you my e-mail to post a comment.
I agree that some of things you mention are annoying, but you offer no solutions. How should the sites make money? Content costs. It’s easy to complain when you’re just looking for a free-ride.
When we began our blog (http://exoptica.typepad.com/blogoptica) we decided not to put advertising on it, ever, and have stuck to this. How’s it going? Just fine.
Thanks,
R H Nigl and G H Diel
How about when they don’t have an area to comment at all. I notice Yahoo doesn’t let you comment on anything, and their articles would be very good to talk about. They leave you with no voice, and that’s the worst feeling when we’re talking about a web 2.0 era.
Haaaaaaaaaaa this was awesome and 203947234070395730% accurate.
Thank you! This was absolutely hilarious and true.
I agree with all you said but above all i loved your explanation images!
Why stop at The Internet?
Y’know what I hate about television? Just when a show starts to get good, BAM! it’s interrupted by a stupid commercial! Or how ’bout that damn radio? They play a coupla songs and then, Ka-Blooie! stupid DJ runs some stupid commercial! Even on the all-news stations, they run those friggin’ commercials! Don’t they know that I’m tuning into the radio to get some quick information, and I’m young and hip and have no attention span so the commercial is a complete turn-off!? And — get this — so, like, the other day, my daddy’s car is in the shop, so I had to ride the bus (can you imagine!! I knowwww…!) and there was an AD on the INSIDE of the BUS!!! Every time I looked up from texting my buddy sitting across me, I saw this dumb ad for Legal Aid Services. I mean, ewwww, right?
RIGHT???
I agree with most of your comments, however I feel I should point out something about your first point.
Pagination does actually make it easier to read and digest content mentally, if it is done correctly. Large long scrolling articles are naturally harder to read than paginated ones. (Why do you think people prefered books to scrolls?)
However, pagination needs to be done correctly for it to be effective. The page should use javascript to load the full article, size it and put it in to columns to make the best use of the reader’s avalible screenspace and then have 0 scrolling required and generate as many pages as required automatically. This is something you aren’t going to see on the internet though for a few years. :/
^^^^newfag
Most sites that have multiple pages per article have a Print link that formats everything on a single page, plus without ads.
18 replies to Sickening Habits of Mainstream Websites (puke)!!
“auto refresh every 120 seconds” on some major news sites, and spreading…
I just wanna add to your point about linking to mentioned content. I HATE when you’re on a page and it has links in the text (which we all agree is great) but then when you click on it, it doesn’t open a new tab etc, it will take you away from the original screen you were on. I know it’s easy to right click first but this is just lazy and evil programming. Does my head in.
“1. Breaking stories in many different pages ”
God, you’re REALLY going to hate books.
I agree the most with #5, requiring registration! I hate this on blogs too. Web users cannot possibly be expected to register with every single website they want to be an active part of!
There is a difference between registering to use a site and using a name and email to post.
I can makeup whatever I want to post here (randomname with a junk email address I use) without being annoyed by this site ever again. That junk email address I use never gets looked at and only visited once a month to delete all emails and keep it active.
Registering requires you to put in information, go to your email address to receive the registration completion email, go back to website to login, and login every time you want to go to that website. Completely different from the process to post a response here and many other places.
As far as ads go, pop-ups and pop-overs are NEVER needed. And sound with ads is completely annoying.
Ads on the side that I can choose whether to go to are non-intrusive and preferred.
I have never gone to a pop-up ad’s website.
I have gone to side text ad’s website (on rare occasion but I have done it).
56K loads a long text page fast. It is the graphics (mostly ads) along with endless scripts (mostly ads) that take forever. I have a large text only site that I have watched load on 56K and cable connections: no discernable difference in loading speed. Compare that to graphic and script intensive ad bloated websites which take forever to load. You can see that the text article length on one webpage makes zero difference in load times. It’s the ads that slow it down. Having to go to four ad-filled pages for one article takes far longer than going to one page with the same ads with all the article text on it.
Add: required flash for navigation. To often it is just a way to enforce visitors to the site to sit through an ad, or see things that the site owner thinks the visitor must know, rather than allowing the visitor to make up his own mind.
“6 : register to leave a comment.
7 : have to scroll down to find the post because of to many adds at the beggining”
I’m so on board with these two as well. Even rinky-dink no-name bloga are guilty of these two. I’m not going to register to post comments because if I did I would have 400 random accounts scattered all over kingdom come that I’m not going to use too often. Either they adopt something like OpenID or just let anyone comment.
The “OMG my blogs banner is so big and awesome!!!” problem is bad too. When you want people to read your posts you probably shouldn’t have a huge 500 pixel-high banner at the top so that’s all I see when your page loads.
A lot of these pet-peeves are also bad simply because they hint at the fact that for these sites it isn’t the delivery of good content that the site cares about, but rather getting revenue. when you hide your content behind splash pages, nestle ads in between articles, and just generally do all you can to obscure your content in favor of showing me stupid ads about stuff I don’t want and never will…well you just made it obvious to me that you don’t care so much about what you put out but rather just seeing that income accumulate. Which makes me think your content probably sucks if you’re going to plaster crap all over it. If your content was good you would find a balance and do all you could to keep it out and visible.
6. 2 colored comment display.
Agreed!
My God, everything on here is dead on accurate
Pages that auto-refresh and go back to the top while you’re reading them, Drudge!
Sites where the content is too far to the right on the page (huge left column), requiring scrolling to read anything.
Sites with headlines so “clever,” you have no idea what they’re about, so you skip what might otherwise be interesting content, Defamer!
Wiki sites where users trample each other to get the latest info typed in the second it happens. Bernie Mac dies! It’s already there!
How do you feel about popunders?
Wait, wait, wait… Hold on a sec. Someone still reads the NY Times???
Great list.
Is it wrong that I’m so trained by these bad sites that I looked at the bottom for a “Page 2″ link?
Wow dude, this is really ought.
Jiff
http://www.anolite.echoz.com
I hate sites that make lists of the Top,Best,Worst or whatever to attract visitors.
Some examples from some site:
# The 25 Best High-Tech Pranks
# TechCult’s Top 100 Web Celebrities
# 20 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Stick In Your USB
# The 5 Worst Reassurances in Tech History
# 10 Things Sony Screwed Up
# 5 Scams That Marked the Internet
It’s the same game as the mainstream visitors
What is ORLY? And what is Woot? I know knarly and woohoo, but not orly and woot.
But other than that, I hate it when I click on an Adsense group that is titles only, and is made to look like navigation links.
Also hate the lists that go one to a page. Is my city one of the 20 cities where real estate is bottoming out? I don’t want to wade through all the other cities. I just want to see if mine if there.
I thank my lucky stars every day for sh*theads like the NYT or Washington Post – without their constant inane attempts to peddle products to me through their “annoy the hell out of me” conduit of affiliate advertising, I never would’ve switched to Firefox. Now, I put up with the occasional memory leak or page render issue for that killer app of killer apps: Adblock Plus.
EPIC FAIL for advertisers.
Sometimes you have to take the solution into your own hands:
1. Breaking stories in many different pages to increase the number of impressions
Repagination [1]. Yeah, it’s old and you have to force it to install in Firefox, but it’s a godsend.
2. Using splash pages with ads
Adblock Plus [2] for the ads, Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper [3] for the holes that occasionally remain.
3. Not linking to the sources or mentioned websites
Context Search [4] – another godsend
4. Using pop-up ads
Firefox [5] (and other modern browsers)
5. Requiring registration to access the content
Bugmenot [6] has a Firefox add-on
1) Repagination – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2099
2) Adblock Plus – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
3) Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4364
4) Context Search – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/240
5) Firefox – Http://getfirefox.com/
6) BugMeNot – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6349
One of the things I want to see is more of the mainstreem sites (Yahoo, Bloomberg, etc.) allowing comments. Yahoo used to be the kind of the comment sites, but I guess they got scared or intimidated that people would actually speak their minds on these sites.
Now I favor sites that allow commenting, and only rarely go to sites that dont. So if I can find the same article on WSJ or Breitbart as opposed to Yahoo, guess which site I’m going to visit.
I agree with h3. The worst for me is a page to listen to music samples or other audio clips and a stupid banner has audio to itself like “congradulations!” over and over again to get you to click it to make you think you won a x-box or some dumb thing.
That’s the dumbest thing considering the page is for listening to audio clips.
So, let me get this straight, the idea is that these companies should give you all their content completely for free, right? Don’t show you ads. Don’t ask for demographic information or the right to talk to you later. Just do research, pay programmers, and give you the information because . . . you want it.
Bookstores should do that too. Just let you walk in and take what you want and walk out. That would be really fair.
Jesus yes. Some of these are just monetized versions of old bad habits, but some of them are entirely new.
Are the different generations of the internet going to be remembered by their annoyances?
Spinning GIFS then Splash Pages then Excessive Flash then Pop-ups, etc?
For the people that are are defending the sites that do this crap, especially Thomas who says that readers have “no rights”:
YOU STFU. No, we don’t have any rights to demand anything of content providers, but that isn’t what this is. The author has just listed things that annoy him. I’m pretty sure that he has the right to do so, unless he lives in Guantanamo Bay.
Honestly, rants like this help content providers. It’s a way for people that try to monetize sites to learn how to do so, by learning how NOT to do so.
Comment moderator: my above post should have the URL: http://www.sandbenders.org
not bedners, freaking typo.
Even if you may not like it, its money that gets the article written and money that keeps them on enough servers to support the load. At the end of the day most of these are revenue generation, so unless you want to start ponying up for a subscription, you should be happy you get this content for free with some minor annoyances.
What about when the website changes the location of the cursor when you’re already typing, ARRRRRRRHHHGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!
Speaking of sites that require registration… is anybody dumb enough to actually provide their real data? I purposely lie – just to make their data useless. I give the wrong gender, the wrong age, the wrong occupation, the wrong everything.
Another peeve… videos that start playing automatically. If I’m reading reddit, for example, I middle click the links to the stuff I’m interested in and load a bunch of tabs for later reading. I go through the first 200 reddit items and then close reddit and read the stuff on maybe 15 tabs loaded earlier. But those damned videos start as soon as they’re clicked, so I must run them down and shut them off until I get to them.
I agree with Thomas, who stated:
“Are you gonna pay to use these sites? No? Well then STFU. You have no rights”
You have all visited these sites to acquire something of value; something others have spent time, effort and talent to produce.
Jumping through a hoop or two is small price to pay.
If you don’t like it, get out your wallets and subscribe to ad-free sites.
Totally agree on the sites. Dell, especially, drives me crazy. Let’s add ‘Any site that does a browser check to exclude browsers because the designers are too goddamn lazy to create standards-based mark-up.
However, lots of the comments are about popups and ads. If that’s the problem, the answer is:
1) Get firefox
2) Get adblock
3) See what the web used to look like before sales and marketing tossers commercialised that crap out of it.
Enjoy
my biggest pet peeve is undated content.
Breaking stories into pages allow the website to more accurately track if the article was read the whole way through.
Audio ads on a website really piss me off more than anything…
ex.
“congratulations you’ve been selected to win a nintendo wii”
seriously you can avoid looking at most ads, but those audio ads always get me..
1) Agreed – Now you just need to find a way to make search engines actually prioritise a page based on actual relevance rather than number of link, pages, keywords and other technical crap. As well, you need to stop advertising agencies using only number of impressions as their means of paying you.
2) Definitely. While I will also point out that websites need a lot of maintenance to be relevant to their users (and maintenance -> time -> $$$), surely the most important thing on your website is your website? How are people going to remember your awesome page if all they remember seeing is a huge Dell ad or 500 “click this link and have your computer infested with viruses” banners.
3) This is very strange. It completely goes against most search engine criteria as well. Linking out to relevant sites is actually a good thing…
4) If advertising can get more annoying it will. Popup windows can be blocked and usually are by default now. So now we’ll have internally popping up ads! I’m waiting for the next generation of blocking so we can see what the next installment of popup technology.
5) This is somewhat tricky. There is a side of the net that people forget – enforcement of rules, particularly moderation. If there is any way that a website can be abused (usually by user content), it needs to have methods to deal with it. I’m not a fan of enforced moderation or standards on the web, but each site has a right to choose rules for itself.
For the most part, I agree with 5 – where it isn’t neccessary, it shouldn’t be enforced (especially for viewing rather than posting), but otherwise I can understand a site making me register to post content of any kind.
SO TRUE! I think the one I hate the most is number 2.
I personally hate it when you have to sign up with a website in order to leave a comment about something. (thank god this website got it right)
definitely agree with you!
I hate such bitch posts…
I agree with all of them except #1 — the “breaking an article into multiple pages” one. You’re assuming sites do that for ad views and ad views only.
Maybe not. I know that when I’m on a page, and I see that scroll bar shrink until it’s tiny, I know I’m up against a big ol’ long page and I get second thoughts about making the commitment to read it all.
Waaaah I want everyone to provide me content for free.
you guys should download ABP (Ad Blocker Plus) for firefox, It blocks ads from ever loading. Its a real live saver and makes browsing more stress free, of course its not perfect and misses some now and then but you just right click the ad an hit block and you never see it again.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
you’re damn right, man!
You forget one:
6. Design your news site to use A4 layout, when this ISN’T a printed news paper. You wouldn’t buy a paper if it had huge white space on either side forcing you to flick through twice as many pages.
Whenever a website prompts me to register, if it’s something I really want to see, I pop over to bugmenot.com and see if there’s a user/pass available there. If not, I just live without it.
i like this article. 5 good rules of thumb.
i like how ‘anonymous’ was so critical of this article. if you’re going to criticize someone, do it like a man. identify who you are in this forum. or make up a better name like ‘john’.
O.K., next, let’s take on the next really really annoying subject… the TV show ads that take up now 1/3 of the screen at the bottom. That is my personal pet peeve.
Digital Creations
I hate commercials on TV, so I stopped watching it.
Sure these types of things suck for the user experience, but as a user you have the option to not use the website.
It’s easy to say “I’d never do those things if that were MY website” or “they should do this, that, and the other thing”. But until you’re in a position to actually have a mainstream website, it’s just hot air coming out of your mouth.
Pretty much bang on. Except not all users are in a hurry, that’s kinda ageist IMO. Many older folk cannot take in information as fast as people who have grown up with the net.
As for splitting pages into tiny chunks, Tom’s Hardware Guide is the worst on the net. It used to be a great site when Dr Pabst ran it, its sucks big time now and I hardly ever drop by. Perfect example of how to piss off your fan base.
Totally agree
you say just the right thing
Some points I agree, but bills still need to be paid. But then again this site seems to be doing just fine. Hmmm, points well taken.
To the folks who get mad about companies having to pay bills and saying things like “TV has commercials, Radio has commercials, walk into a bookstore and steal a book (??) –
It’s not that (most of us) object to ads. I make my living by running ads on my web site(s). What we *do* object to is the massive overuse of ads. The “splash pages with ads” example (#2 in this list) – that’s TOO much. Or forcing users to click through 10 pages to read one article, again, TOO much. As you can see from this thread, the massive overuse of advertising drives people to install ad blocking software, which in turn harms those of us who advertise on our sites, but a little more subtly.
Using examples like “TV has commercials” – sure. But what if a half hour TV show was actually 10 minutes of show, and 20 minutes of ads. Would you listen to a radio station that had 45 minutes of ads for every 15 minutes of music? No. Because it’s TOO much.
As annoying as this stuff may be, the reason it’s getting worse and worse is because normal ads don’t work anymore. People use adblockers or just plain ignore ads, so the big guys have to make their ads more intrusive.
If you really don’t like it don’t visit their sites, but if you do visit their sites and value their content, then remember that nothin’s for nothin and you’re if you’re not paying for it and not clicking their ads, where the hell do they get their revenue from??
Can’t stand sites that do not link sources because they are afraid to let the visitors leave the page!!!
I try to avoid these sites
A couple of weeks ago I struck the Washington Post rort. I couldn’t believe the stuff they wanted to know. About 10 questions, all compulsory before you could register to view an article. My occupation? That is compulsory?? WTF!
Had to check it was still 2008, not 1998. I didn’t think anyone did that anymore….
Avoiding that site like the plague.
Now this is a great story! I love it when I see someone write their honest opinion. You were’nt thinking about any of the words you used or worried about how somethings sounded or anything just an honest complaint story! Good Job! I hate all those things too.
Wow, great story, I really like it. I hate all those same things but never thought to put them all down on paper before. Catchy title too!
I agree wholeheartedly! I too though, wonder what ORLY means I hope someone says what that means! Good discussion lots of good informative comments.
Multipage articles make me want to gouge my eyes out. I’m looking at your Forbes.
Pop-up ads, like spam, exist because they work.
I couldn’t agree more with your top five.
Why do i NEED to supply an email address to comment?
Hmm?
Hmm?!
I agree with all you said but above all i loved your explanation images!
Yes, get Firefox, then for each problem:
1) Get Antipagination – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7772
2) Get AdblockPlus – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865 – and subscribe to the filters at http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions
3) Get Quickview – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3508
4) Get Element Hiding Helper for fake popups – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4364
5) Get BugMeNot – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6349
“Especially with large articles and detailed lists, this would make page load times far higher than necessary”
The page load times would be a lot lower if the blogs/pages weren’t splattered with adverts everywhere, each making its own DNS call. That’s how the Internet used to be. No ridiculous backgrounds and very few ads. Things loaded just fine over 28.8. It’s been downhill ever since. I shouldn’t have to wait 30 seconds for a page to load when I’m sitting on a 45mbit DS3.
Yeah, i hate it when web sites spend large amounts of money each month and try to provide content and sh*t. I mean, come on already this stuff should be completely free to me. its like when I watch network tv, they dont pop up annoying ads…
Wow Mardeg, that is hell of good solutions for the problems!~ (I had never heard of them except BugMeNot).
Well, I know for a fact that personally 1, 2, 4, and 5 are eventually things I quit visiting the site because of.
As for 3, it’s a give-and take. There are times when I have to manually find the page and that sucks. Sometimes I just guess name.com or google for “name homepage” and find it quickly.
The funny thing is, I get the most irritated when a site links to another site which is down. I absolutely positively HATE dead links. They piss me off much much more than no links in the first place.
And as for some of the user submitted additions:
Ads with sound – the page is instakilled.
Too many mouseovers – I stop visiting that .com usually.
Requiring Flash – If it has motion at the start I go get a drink and when I’m back, the menu of user choices usually appeared by then.
Something I haven’t seen commented on: Pop-unders. Those bug me too, especially when I use Mozilla with supposed “pop-up blocker” WTF? You can block purposeful popups like Launchcast but not automated ones like Geocities used to do?
Oh, and for the record, linking to other sites is what brought me to this site. I visit certain websites which sometimes do nothing BUT link to other sites – Fark, 13gb(which brought me here), Gorillamask, leenks, ebaums, and more. So, that myth is debunked, based on the popularity of those sites and more.
Another one: News sites that never run photos with stories or only run thumbnails too small to see. The Internet is a visual medium as much as anything else, but news sites continue to use it primarily a text medium. I recall a story recently about the death of the world’s ugliest dog with no photos. What ever happened to “a picture with worth 10,000 words?”
the ones that piss me off the most are the re-directs, you click on a short movie clip from the picture you hope to be viewing and it slaps you to another sight with a buch of pop ups, it is most often my last time i visit that web sight…c.h.
I found this through Stumbleupon, and I also hate ads… I don’t really see them anymore due to three things…
1.) Firefox 3
2.) Ad-Block Plus
3.) No-Script
With these three things set up properly, you’ll never see an ad again.
Just my two cents.
Thank you for this post that confirms my sanity. I’m sure others have went through the thought process of “why does all this crap annoy me so much? I’m sure all the other web users just take it like a man/woman.”
I hate all of them!
“Not linking to the sources or mentioned websites”
One of the worst practice! Makes me crasy when I see news or reviews using my tools without a backlink to my websites.
Guys, guys. It’s just websites trying to get on the bandwagon with this shit as fast as they can. This ‘new’ type of pop-up, advert shit is a fad.
There needs to be an elimination of ads completely from websites. Or this trend will keep continuing.
And finally. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads. I fucking hate these types of ads.
Forget mainstream websites, look at the number of bloggers these days that think they can get away with popups pushing their newsletters. Talk about annoying.
You picked the really annoying 5 habits. I wish they would stop doing that, and they would get more traffic and link love in return from thankful bloggers.
She may like zombies. lol.
Thanks for putting this up. More people need to see this and realize that these are very valid points when designing a website. I wrote an article a few months ago about Flashblock for Firefox, IE and Safari to try and discourage flash advertisements. It allows regular graphic or text advertisements, but blocks flash pop ups and those noisy and obnoxious flash ads as well. Advertisements are a necessary evil, but when your ad screams, “HELLO!” every five seconds, that is really crossing the line.
The “multiple pages for single article” thing has been a pet hate of mine for a good while. Anyone notice that “Top 10/100/500000″ lists all suddenly really fucking popular at the moment?? Possibly because they’re massive earners for the assholes at cracked and askmen
Conan
Sites that allow you to comment without registering but still require your email address!
For what purpose? Ring a bell?
spam@somename.com lol
Quit yer bitchin’. Do you think the people who spend all day working at these websites do so for free? Ever looked at a business model? There has to be a way to pay the bills or else they would need to go to a subscription based model. I don’t think you’d be a subscriber….so, deal with it and quit yer bitchin.
Use firefoxx + adblock plus.
And http://www.bugmenot.com
Problems solved for the most part anyway
“My personal pet-peeve is the banners with dumb smilies which yells something stupid and annoying at random intervals.”
What h3 said to the nth desgree. I want to break something when that happens.
All points very well made! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
A-men brotha! This kind of stuff bugs the heck out of me. Don’t forget adding all the random counters etc. that slow down the load time of a page.
Two words Firefox and Adblock. Cuts out 90% of internet annoyances.
Impressive! I agree with you… I recently went off about freakin pop-ups on blogs at my site- most agree, they hate it! A major turn off, if a pop-up hits my screen, I don’t care of popular of a blogger you are- I”m GONE!
Because I have been hating all of these things and more for a very long time I have found ways to avoid them and tailor other people’s websites to my liking.
1. Print pages (which are unnecessary using style sheets) are nearly always all-on-one-page and skip a lot of the most annoying ads (the animated ones). If you get an article that has multiple pages, try the print version.
2. I use Adblock[0] with Firefox so those splash pages are nearly always empty except for the link to the actual content. It’s still annoying but it downloads much faster than having to wait for the ad as well which is an improvement. There’s probably a Firefox plugin that will detect splash pages and automatically redirect you to the content.
3. Google to the rescue on this one. You can highlight any text on a page then right-click and choose “Search Google for …” This will nearly always find the correct site. The subtle variation on this habit that annoys me is when they copy an entire story from another website and attribute the story to that site but then link to the home page of the site rather than the actual article. Finding the original article involves a little extra Google magic[1]. I usually do my little bit to contribute to the improvement of StumbleUpon[2] by thumbing down the copy and thumbing up the original as well.
4. These are the Flash over-lay ads that expand to take up half the screen when you roll over them. Thankfully, Adblock blocks them as well. I don’t even download them which helps my meagre bandwidth allowance as well. This goes double for Flash ads that contain a playing movie and triple for the ones with sound.
5. I don’t have much to add to this one apart from a change in attitude that they are the ones missing out on my obviously witty and insightful comments rather than me being the one missing out on expressing my point of view. Sometimes it inspires me to go and write a whole blog post on my own site rather than commenting on someone else’s site. Some clever sites are starting to use shared login credentials like OpenID[3] which makes logging in much less painful.
Using the Firefox plugin NoScript[4] can be quite helpful to stop those inline ads that change certain words of the article itself into double underlined links that pop up an ad when you roll over them.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awashingtonpost.com+McColo
[2] http://www.stumbleupon.com
[3] http://openid.net/
[4] http://noscript.net/
hahaha spot on i say.
Pagination within stories is crazy and I automatically close those to try somewhere else, Same goes for most of the others on the list. As some other people have stated needing to give an email address to post comments is annoying but I just have a false one ready so it’s no big deal.
Another thing that drives me crazy is when you need javascript to post a comment and THERE IS NO WARNING so that you lose the whole post you where writing. NoScript FTW!
what about the talky ads… Man I hate talking ads.
Fox News has many photo galleries, some with 20 or 30 pictures. You get exactly 5 before the page refreshes to give you a new crop of ads. I’ve written numerous times to complain, nary a response ever. It makes them look cheap in addition to being biased…
The whole advertising business model needs to die. When it stopped being a way for media to earn extra income and cut costs to customers, and became the primary purpose of the media, it outlived its usefulness.
Newspapers are wringing their hands over losing revenue. They are willing to do anything except provide things readers actually want, like comics bigger than a postage stamp or real local news coverage. But I got a pound of waste paper this Black Friday morning. Gotta get those precious advertising bucks, but not at the cost of lowering subscription rates.
The pinnacle of stupid is cable TV. I’m going to PAY for TV, AND get commercials, too? Fat chance. Cable is far worse than network TV; at the end of an interesting show you literally have 50% commercials, 50% program. No. Here’s how it should work. I will pay for TV when it’s commercial free. The cable providers pay the media companies for content and charge viewers for it. If I think it’s a good value, I will sign up. I get along just fine without cable TV.
A sixth item for the list is web sites that want you to register to post comments. This one does the sensible thing and just asks for a name and e-mail. Your web site is a luxury. I can live without it.
Ooh is my face red.
I mentioned cable TV as the pinnacle of stupidity. Boy was I wrong.
The pinnacle of stupidity is PAYING an advertiser to advertise his product ON YOUR BODY. Sports logos, designer labels, whatever. With TV, magazines, and web pages, the advertiser pays to place his ad. Only dumb-as-rocks consumers PAY the advertiser.
you can avoid all that excrement to pushed on your screen if you stick to Firefox, with AD Block plus, and NO Script, then you can choose IF you want to allow them scoundrels to run scripts on your browser.
be informed.
yes, people who run these websites need to make money. yes, so do bookstores.
comparing the two is, quite frankly, !@#$ing ignorant.
the article talks about websites that do the equivalent to cramming a one-page article into a Macy’s catalog one line per page, that yells at you to buy stuff and sells your demographic information to 3rd parties who send you more catalogs without ANY information whatsoever.
I’ve read all of these, and as an internet marketing professional, I just have to chime in.
First, breaking a long article into multiple pages is considered a best practice. Lots of words running down a single page looks daunting on a screen, and is difficult on the eyes as well. If you really prefer to scroll down rather than page next, most websites will offer the option to ‘View Article on One Page.’ It’s an extra click – whoop dee doo.
Second, marketing people are not the enemy. Advertising money is what has made the internet what it is today.
For instance, 69% of American internet users start their web experience at a search engine, and search engines are entirely funded by ad money. All of those free email services that make your life easier, all of the browsers that you cheer, even the applications that are trumpeted by commenters as the solution to pesky ad pop-ups – those are all funded by advertising dollars.
Now, that being said, there are more polite ways for marketers to get their message across. Banners with sound are rude and disgusting. Videos that start automatically hinder page loads and interfere with our enjoyment of the music that we’ve CHOSEN to hear. And those pop overs that jump out over the link that I meant to click or the content that I am trying to read are intrusive to the site visitor.
In short, a good marketer can create advertising that attracts positive attention, much the way a beautiful woman attracts attention without flaunting.
Unfortunately, many marketers are desperate for your clicks. The best way to make those annoying ads go away? Click on the good ones, never click the bad ones, and make your buying decisions fit accordingly.
I hate websites that don’t list prices and ask you to fill in a form for more info. Then you are forced to take a call from a salesman to find out the product is way more than your boss wants to spend.
Prices on the website saves time. Many many people have lost sales to their competitor because I refuse to fill in these damned forms!
I can really only agree with numbers 4 and 5 and partially number 2. Pop-ups annoy everyone, I’ve never met a person who simply shrugs without care; although this is possibly a result of peer pressure because most people will not make their own decisions on good or bad when it comes to the internet. The ad splash pages are a minor annoyance. The get in the way, but at least they don’t push themselves into view right over what I was reading or watching. I understand how helpful advertising is for companies, but I very rarely care about anything they show me. I take a stance that if I want to know where to get something and/or what the latest is from a place that I will find out for myself, I don’t need it shoved in my face all the time.
Number 5 is just plain stupid. I don’t want to register to see something I easily go somewhere else for and I don’t want to register to have my opinion heard. I shouldn’t have to register for content. Ever!
As for number 1 and 3: get over it. Complaining about these topics is the chore of a fool who is just too lazy. Save your energy from complaining to make those extra clicks or self done searches, it takes a lot less. These complaints file neatly under “people who are pissing and moaning about having to put forth an effort that is insignificant”.
irritating things on websites…
You don’t have to register to leave a comment you fucking dumb asses. Its a general requirement for ALL blogs, okay fine don’t leave your web link and get free traffic.
Pretty much bang on. Except not all users are in a hurry, that’s kinda ageist IMO. Many older folk cannot take in information as fast as people who have grown up with the net.
As for splitting pages into tiny chunks, Tom’s Hardware Guide is the worst on the net. It used to be a great site when Dr Pabst ran it, its sucks big time now and I hardly ever drop by. Perfect example of how to piss off your fan base.
yes
http://www.forums.topmaxtech.net
when websites do the above mentioned i just go elsewhere. not on the left cheek , not on the right cheek, but right dead in the center of the crack is where they can kiss my ass
how about, asking people to put in their email address just to leave a comment like this site JUST DID!!! oh that’s great it won’t be published, then i guess you don’t really need it in the first place! ridiculous. wonder if i’m gonna get new spam mail now….
I couldn’t agree more with you one these!
Some relief comes from using FF with adblock plus plugin, and if you don’t want to register with your own email/user find one at bugmenot.com
Yeah.. most of this stuff is really really annoying.
Pop up really sucks..
Those screenshots are hilarious! I was mortified when I loaded up a page on one of my OWN blogs a few months ago and got hit with a popup ad! I was using a reputable ad network and I can’t believe they are still selling popup ads- period.
Easily tied for “most annoying website aggrievance” with music that loads when you load the page!
Danelle Ice (Homemaker Barbi)
These things are only going to get more true in the future. Children of today are getting ever more “give me it now” than teenagers.
I’m a 19 year old computer science student, as such I tend to spend a lot of time on the internet and immediately leave any site trying to throw a splash page or too-prominent ads at me. As opposed to less-tech-savvy people I know, who’s attention is distracted for far longer; along with maybe three quarters of 25+.
More and more people are hitting the same attitude all the time, both through teenagers coming through and adults getting smart on it. Suddenly, where are your visitors? Oh yes, just leaving your splash page.
Very interesting, but I think people are very annoyed. TOP nowadays becomes not interesting as it was.
I hate the pop-ups too, they make me wanna throw my mouse at the screen.
Use this website to create a generic login to many sites, so you don’t have to register just to “read on”… http://www.bugmenot.com/
Articles on multiple pages may… be needed sometimes.
But I agree, the other stuff often isn’t.
I must say that I had a very big laugh though, when my boss thought he had 400+ viruses on his PC, while in fact it was just a pop-up.
I guess we’ll have to wait until our laws become as global as the internet and avoid annoying sites as much as possible.
By the way, where do all those hundreds hot chicks live ? according to the ads they do live in my village (with 2000 inhabitants), but… I’ve only seen a few in real life.
It’s hard to believe that people still use popups on their sites. Seems to be a growing movement to sing the popups for surveys or ebooks.
Registering to comment has to be the dumbest thing ever, not many people will take the time to register then have to go back and fill out a comment form. 5 minutes to leave a comment is too long for the average user unless they really have something important to say.
Good post.
I use http://www.guerrillamail.com/ to give me a temp email address for an hour. That is enough to register with any website. Then when I log in I tell my browser to remember the user name and password for that site. Along with firefox and adblock plus that stops adds from showing and pop ups from popping I do not see most adds. If I meet new add that is not covered I tell addblock to make a rule for it and that is it.
Some time you want to read an article like this page and you are forced to download all the comments on that page like on this one. Why not keep them on a separate page. If one wishes to see them one would go the link for that. It takes from the loading time and some of us still have a download quota that this eats from it.
I thought ORLY was an airport in Paris?
You nailed it… I hate websites which split articles into tiny bits so they would get more ad impressions. Pop-ups aren’t really a problem ever since I started using NoScript. I also dislike having to register for every little bit, including reading and writing comments (thankfully your website doesn’t require that
).
Great post. Many people just don’t care and are lazy when it comes to linking to the source rather than doing it right. Or they are scared their visitors might actually go to another web site and read information!!
These are amazingly huge websites, i love the news content which it brings but they have some annoying ways of showing ads
Or how “next” often goes to previous posts instead of newer posts and previous goes to newer posts! WTF!?!
yeah I agree but number 5 should be number 1. Nothing pisses me of more than having to register all my details to get a poxy bit of info.
Nothing pisses me off more than having to register to view content. Also if something pops up in front of the content, I’ll just move on to a different site instead of closing the pop-up.
6. Sites that offer a simple “comment” box or some other feature, and after you waste 5 minutes typing it up, force you to “subscribe”. NO! Give me my 5 minutes back!
lolzzzz …. good observation
Why do you need my name and email address to post a comment?
Can’t you just moderate out the naughty ones?
I detest web registration to join in a conversation, it would be like having to give out your phone number every time you speak to somebody in a bar!
As for banner ads – try rerouting all the adservers to 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file.
Sorry if I am getting a bit techie!
This explains how to do it:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
Brilliant for speeding download times and saving download quota if you are on mobile broadband
You become so use to these things most of the time I don’t even notice anymore.
what do you guys think of this site? I think I made simple and to the point unlike the 5 habits from mainstream websites topic mentioned here. (I just wonder about your opinion)thank you.
http://www.fix-your-computer-today.com/index.html
For those reasons, I immediately ditch sites that do those things. I like your site better. Nice Alexa rating…
How about when you click on “next page” on a list or something, and it turns out that the link “next page” was actually an ad on the bottom of the website leading you to a glorious pop-up?
Except the first one I agree 100%. I have 106 pages on my site and one story had to be broken into 3 pages, so it’s either that or wait forever to load and scroll and scroll and scroll. But I know you meant abusing the ‘next’ button. No dirty tricks on my site.
#6. Requiring registration to leave a comment!
My favorite pet peave is when you get a pop-up and you have two choices, cancel or continue. Click either one and a full blown ad comes up and it won’t let you exit. Even when you manage to get the window closed, it pops back up on your desktop.
How about websites that nofollow editorial links in their content (like your link to bugmenot…)?
i’ll add this: register to post comment.
this is just OMGWTFBBQRICROLL unacceptable.
How about wikipedia articles that spell “while” as “whilst”? I might as well type “ain’t and y’all”.
I loathe sites that requires registration for comments.
Call me paranoid, but I always find it fishy when an opinion requires your personal details.
Amen!!!
Spot on
Not one person here, for all the whinging and whining, mentioned the hundreds of sites that actually don’t have any content, but exist solely to scrape RSS feeds and random articles cheaply, crudely and often automatically culled from other sites. The ones that link to other sites doing the same thing, that sometimes link to somewhere else useless, until finding the actual content, rather than the potted crap they want to feed you becomes impossible.
They are the real leaches, and exist only to steal other’s work while getting ad revenue and adding no value.
You have squarely hit the nail on the head. I feel exactly the same about these things, registering being an instant “I don’t care about that information anymore” response from me.
all of the above are the TOP annoyances from any given site. the next is Javascript links
What I dont believe I see eye to eye with that at all really.
Cheers Daniel for the post. We took on board your advice and avoided breaking our ‘101 Travel Tips for Enjoying Australia on a Budget’ ( http://bit.ly/dvUbf ) story into many different pages.
Couldn’t have said it any better myself. I abhor the 60 word articles that are 9 pageviews long. Pathetic. thanks for the list.
My own personal peeve? When they try to catch a meme, or a hot trend according to Google – then put together a badly written piece just to surf off the back of the traffic wave.
The Guardian are particularly shameful in doing this – they’ll continue to write a bullshit article the minute Google changes their logo, and grab the traffic from the logo clickthrough.
see…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/04/google-doodle-wallace-and-gromit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/08/ec-segar-popeye-google-doodle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/04/google-doodle-sesame-street-bigbird-40
I really hate the nasty ones that wont let u leave when u press back. the ones the keep redirecting u back to it. and the ones that say r u sure u want to leave? if u stay u will get this and this and shit. i really hate them. and what really pisses me off is ones that say u can dwnload stuff for FREE. and it says u need to join after and they charge u to join.like fuck off. that is what really grinds my gears.
If I’m asked to register for something…9 out of 10 times I will leave immediately. In the first place I get suspicious that someone may be trying to get my personal information, and in the second place I don’t have time for that b.s. when there are probably other sites where I can get the info without the b.s. and I am usually 100% correct.
How about lying like sacks of shit and not investigating stuff that he government gets away with. I HATE the f—ing MSM
Read the first one like “thats pathetic, stop moaning.” I mean seriously, its a one second inconvience to click next page, and if it gets them a bit of extra money from advertising good for them! How would you rather a website kept up its pay, through that or e-begging, scamming, popups and spam?
However, the rest of them are pretty vaild things that are annoying… especially 2. sooo many times I have clicked on a website, accidently clicked an add, which led to another splash site, confusing me, and normally leading to a final result of being sat there with a thousand popup advertisments, 3 splash screens, and no memory of what I was searching for in the first place.
The uk volvo website has a flash interface that takes a while to load and it’s just a menu with one button! Insane and I wish they’d stop and think before spending loads of money on silly graphical stuff that does nothing.
My pet peeve, although the technology is neat (but quickly annoying) are the flash banner sliders (I’ve seen these on sites like cnn.com, etc.) where, upon page load, they slide over the content that you were *just reading. Then you need to fumble about finding the close window icon just to get back to what you *were focusing about. Ironic, especially with a news site…
I want to get information, not the other way around. Do not force me to register up and leave my email address and other personal details unless it is absolutely necessary,.Thank you,.web design
the rest of them are pretty vaild things that are annoying… especially 2. sooo many times I have clicked on a website, accidently clicked an add, which led to another splash site, confusing me, and normally leading to a final result of being sat there with a thousand popup advertisments, 3 splash screens,Thank you,.Arlington moving companies
Agreed with Harsh7 – never never never ask for my details in order to get more information. Its almost like having a doorman at a business’ door asking for ID to be let in