Please let me know what you think of these sites. -

Hi there,
I quite like the domain name site. Not to keen on the globe all on its own, I would give it a background that merges with the other two table colours perhaps.
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Site
www.what-next.com
The NEXT step in Designing and Promoting your Website

-http://www.proteque.com,
Overall, that site has a good layout. The navigation graphics, company information, research results, etc., could use some work though. Like all being the same color, or gradienting down through the navigation (ie: top is black, second to top is a lighter black, third is gray, etc.)

Another thing: you may want to consider removing the LinkExchange banner. LinkExchange gives a 2:1 ratio. If you look around you can find a much better one. Maybe a 5:4 or something.

Also, I would recommend getting in on a button exchange as they take up less space:
http://click.myspot.net is good.

And put some ALT tags on your navigation images. It helps a lot for your visitors if they have a very slow connection. Belive it or not, some people still connect on 9600 baud.

-http://www.domaintradezone.com,
I agree with in JP, the globe really looks out of place. You may want to change that to static add some text and use it as a logo. Or, you may just want to eliminate it and get a "smoother" look. Like an image that combines the green "DomainTradeZone" and the blue navigation images with a gradient fill or something.

If your not an artist, I don't know too many webmasters who are, than you may want to see how you can get the images to blend without getting further art.

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Thank You,
-nick mancini
-icq: 35175980
-aol/aim: avbzero
-http://www.extreme-vb.net/access

Some excellent advice from Nick.
Especially regarding:
- The LE ratio, there is better out there try LiteWeb.com. They are an up and coming network
- Alt tags, not only do people still log on at slow connections, many surf with graphics off to speed up access, which means Alt tags are essential.
- The best comment of the day must be where Nicj agrees with me.

I have an article I wrote on 'choosing the right banner exchange but with the confusion surrounding the new sie I seem to have misplaced it, I will be back with the URL.
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Site
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The NEXT step in Designing and Promoting your Website

Proteque,
I really like the bright colored menu bar it says "doctor" to me for some reason. You may want to highlight your other pages "tables" with similar bright colors.
I would reduce the length of the paragraph text on the first page by about an inch.
cuts off half a word on my monitor and I have to scroll, it's harder to read that length of a paragraph on a computer monitor anyway.
You may also benefit from putting a smaller logo of the "proteque" name on each page.
(they will never forget your name that way

Product info page:
"click for where to get proteque"
this sounds a little funny to me, possibly just "where to get proteque" or click for proteque"?
This page also has different paragraph lenghts (top, full page--bottom, half page) you could fill up that space on the bottom right with a banner.

Domain Trade Zone:
Something about the upper left corner, I think it would be nice to merge your logo with your menu bar to make it one large "L" shape (I don't mind the globe as much as it's surrounding blank space which looks a little awkward to me)

take care,

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Carolyn Jones

First of all thanks to everyone for posting their responses.

*The globe has that little background that it does, because the tables have the % attribute for the width. So if I made a blending image (to blend the top and left colors) then it would look messed up if was not viewed at 800 x 600. I chose the % attribute instead of the pixel attribute because it looks much better at all resolutions.

*Nick, when you say gradienting down the navigation, what exactly do you mean? for the home page I amd many other people also like the colorful navigational bar. It seems to brighten up the site some.

*Link Exchange- We chose this service because
1. they provide stats for the pages that the banner is on. So we can log into LE and see how many people went to each page of the site that day. This is very helpful. Also we have hitbox statistics but they are only for the homepage (not the entire site). In the near future the site should be on a server with WEBTRENDS (A great statistics analyzer, if you know a better one please let me know).
Webtrends will then provide statistics for the entire site and perhaps take off some of the banners.

2. LE offers many categories. This allows Proteque's banner to only be displayed on pages realtive to the information on Proteque's site.

*Alt tags. I have them on all of the graphics except the navigation bar. I used to but, I recently changed the navigational bar so that it turns shadowy when you put the cursor over it. I did this by using image splicing. If you look at the code it took about 35 images to create the navigation bar. I will add the ALT tags soon. Thanks.

*domaintradezone globe. What exactly is the problem with the globe. To me it creates a professional look. what impression does it give you? Do you think it would help if I took out some of the animations in the globe? Or instead of the globe what do you think I should use?

*I am currently under the process of thinking of a plan for most of the pages that are linked to from the HOmepage, such as making the top color the same as the color the pages link is on the homepage. I will probably also add Proteque's logo on the top of all of the pages.

*If the text ran off the screen on the Homepage, you must have viewed it at 640 by 480. I am aware of this. This happened once I added the LE banner to the bottom of the page. I am going to probably redo the navigation graphic to fix this, so I can decrease the width of the left column on the homepage.

* Can I get some more input on the saying "Click for where to get prottteque". Is it a funny saying. The site is made to be navigated by someone who knows almost nothign about the internet, so CLICK HERE seemes logical. What do the rest of you think?

Thanks everyone for your input and the time you put into it. I should be implementing some of the changes shortly. I think this BBS is a great feature.

~Chris

Hi Chris,
As far as:
"click for where to get proteque"
I would like to hear someone else's opinion on that too. I'm certainly not an English scholar, so I could be wrong. The "click for" is a common internet term, and so is the "Where to get....." maybe separate the two. (I'f I remember i'll ask my English scholar friend next time she calls

The globe:
I think the globe would look cool as a part of your banner --similar to the globe on the banner at the top of this page. Or, as part of the bar on the left, possibly a little smaller to make it fit? A lot can be done with a globe/map theme. If you like it, keep it. If you want more "suggestions" just ask I don't want to overwhelm you all at once
take care,

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Carolyn Jones

Many of these banner exchanges offer better tracking that LE, as well as better ratios.

quote:"click for where to get proteque"

...sounds awkward to me as well. How about:
- Click here for proteque?
- Click now for proteque?

***EDIT***
Just noticed a few more things:
- The site loads slowly, is it all contained in one table? If so that is why, separate the content into several staked tables.
- This Proteque link is actually two links made to look like one, so now I am COMPLETELY confused as to it's meaning
- You need to make all your page match, looks more professional!
***EDIT***

JP

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The NEXT step in Designing and Promoting your Website

[This message has been edited by JP Stones (edited April 13, 1999).]

JP,
About the Proteque link being two links. If you were referring to the Product Info page then I fixed it. If you were talking about something else, please let me know exactly what you are talking about.
I have had better luck making sites in ONE table for their compatibly. It doesn't take that long to load for me and I sign on at 28.8.
When you say make the page match. What are you talking about, please be more specific. Thanks!

rivimont,
That was the link I was talking about.

It really is not that hard stacking tables.
<table>
<tr>
<td>
content
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table>
<tr>
<td>
content
</td>
</tr>
</table>

..will load faster than a content laden:
<table>
<tr>
<td>
content
</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>
content
</td>
</tr>
</table>

and is really simple to achieve. Netscape will only a page when all the table had been downloaded.

Re: standardising the pages, I mean if you start with a two column design, stick with it throughout the site - don't swap to a one column design.
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Site
www.what-next.com
The NEXT step in Designing and Promoting your Website