Please Review my Site - Somzo.com!
Hey guys, just finished doing all of the design overhaul on my website, it's basically an MP3 search engine that draws the results off of multiple other websites. Any comments or criticism would be great so I can make it as good as possible!
greg posted this at 06:26 — 21st December 2008.
He has: 1,581 posts
Joined: Nov 2005
First thought, only home and contact links in the nav. Is this site going to be lacking in content? (I discovered from browsing the answer is yes)
I tried the search, which is your sites most important (and only) function really, and it didn't work too well.
I searched for a song called "Cardboard City", 12 results were given but only 2 of those results had both my keywords in.
While some searches in certain circumstances can be a little less fussy towards using all keywords a user enters, finding a song name must surely require ALL the words, exactly as they where typed?
I mean, 10 of the results simply had the word "city" in them. There must be hundreds of thousands of songs with the word City in the title. So to not use my given song name in its entity when searching is bad enough, but to only find 10 songs with the word "City" in is a little disappointing also.
Ahh, but then I see the "Next" button, maybe my dismay at the results was unfair...but the next button doesn't find anything new, only searches again (appears to be searching) and gives me the exact same 12 results as before.
I did try to search for some more "popular" song names and had some good results. Although some weird ones too, with chars in the song names as if something went wrong somewhere.
EG - searching for Thriller (which I thought would surely be found) returned this -
Whoand#039;s Bad ThrillerThe 10 most recent search list is ok, but it should not list the same search more than once. I tried my search with the same song name again and it now lists it as number 1 and 2. Also, when the site gets popular, recent searches could be replaced by most popular.
I like the site layout and colours. Simple, clean and tidy, but not much in the way of features/functions or things to do.
So I navigated to the contact page as there's not much else to look at and found your portfolio and pricings for building websites. I am now totally confused as to what you do
Not to sure what you have done towards the copyright and royalty issues, but I can only hope you have addressed this extremely important requirement.
Also, terms of service and copyright is always extremly important these days. ESPECIALLY with a site like yours with other people's content on it (songs). You really should have a terms and conditions and copyright pages so viewers know what's what, and importantly to cover yourself against problems with other companies.
Good luck with the site. Add some more features, some more content relevant to your niche (music / music downloads) and keep the same layout design in other functions you add as the style is cool!
mjwalsh posted this at 22:18 — 21st December 2008.
They have: 8 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Thanks for this detailed review. I will look into modifying the code for the results to contain all of the searched words instead of just one. I will also look into trying to add more features and content, I have honestly been looking to add more pages but I am just trying to figure out what to add, considering the site is simply an MP3 Search Engine, I am thinking of maybe adding a user system where they can save their latest searches for their favorite songs maybe so instead of having to search they just go tot heir profile adn click play, I don't know I am still thinking about those ideas.
As far as the portfolio thing, my portfolio was there for simply contact purposes and if people wanted to see. I am not quite sure what you mean about having my portfolio on a totally different domain and website, as it is.. My portfolio is mjwalsh.net and the website is somzo.com. So I don't understand where the confusion on that is, maybe you could elaborate a little more on what you found confusing, so I can understand and try to fix it.
Anyways thanks much for the detailed review greg I found it very informative and helpful. Appreciate your review especially since your the only one that did haha. Anyways thanks, I will look into those changes and if you could answer my question about your confusion on my portfolio that'd be nice as well, thanks!
I tried the search, which is your sites most important (and only) function really, and it didn't work too well.
I searched for a song called "Cardboard City", 12 results were given but only 2 of those results had both my keywords in.
While some searches in certain circumstances can be a little less fussy towards using all keywords a user enters, finding a song name must surely require ALL the words, exactly as they where typed?
I mean, 10 of the results simply had the word "city" in them. There must be hundreds of thousands of songs with the word City in the title. So to not use my given song name in its entity when searching is bad enough, but to only find 10 songs with the word "City" in is a little disappointing also.
Ahh, but then I see the "Next" button, maybe my dismay at the results was unfair...but the next button doesn't find anything new, only searches again (appears to be searching) and gives me the exact same 12 results as before.
I did try to search for some more "popular" song names and had some good results. Although some weird ones too, with chars in the song names as if something went wrong somewhere.
EG - searching for Thriller (which I thought would surely be found) returned this -
Whoand#039;s Bad ThrillerThe 10 most recent search list is ok, but it should not list the same search more than once. I tried my search with the same song name again and it now lists it as number 1 and 2. Also, when the site gets popular, recent searches could be replaced by most popular.
I like the site layout and colours. Simple, clean and tidy, but not much in the way of features/functions or things to do.
So I navigated to the contact page as there's not much else to look at and found your portfolio and pricings for building websites. I am now totally confused as to what you do
Not to sure what you have done towards the copyright and royalty issues, but I can only hope you have addressed this extremely important requirement.
Also, terms of service and copyright is always extremly important these days. ESPECIALLY with a site like yours with other people's content on it (songs). You really should have a terms and conditions and copyright pages so viewers know what's what, and importantly to cover yourself against problems with other companies.
Good luck with the site. Add some more features, some more content relevant to your niche (music / music downloads) and keep the same layout design in other functions you add as the style is cool!
greg posted this at 23:09 — 21st December 2008.
He has: 1,581 posts
Joined: Nov 2005
That's a good idea ... if you get enough users that is.
It's also essential to give enough reasons to want to be a member. Profile page with past searches, fave artists / songs etc etc.
Viewing the results from these (and similar) searches will give you some ideas of what to give people (without directly copying of course)
Ideas for listening features / options
Ideas for downloading features / options
I am visiting a website that allows me to search for MP3's, listen to them and/or download them. The contact page should be to contact somzo.com (perhaps admin @ somzo.com) regarding MP3 issues or something else with your MP3 site.
But on your contact page I see the contact email is a different domain to your website (email @ mjwalsh.net) and also a link to another site offering me web design and PHP development work and some prices.
Ok, so I put two and two together, and see mjwalsh.net did the site work and obviously does work for the public and private co's too.
But IMO, it's two seperate things (I didn't see they were on differen't domains -my bad) but I don't think you should link to it like that.
Perhaps on the page footer of the MP3 site have a link something like "Website design, development and management by mjwalsh.net", or Michael Walsh (etc)
Which links to your development site as the web development site that made your MP3 site. you can even state mjwalsh.net owns the MP3 site, but I would keep them separate.
some may disagree, and you may like it like that, but personally I think it's better as they are two different sites. One is a site allowing people to find MP3 songs, and the other is a site that codes/designs websites for people.
Two domain names and therefore two different email addresses and run as two separate sites.
mjwalsh posted this at 19:02 — 22nd December 2008.
They have: 8 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Ahh okay thanks for elaborating I will probably end up doing that.
charan posted this at 12:25 — 13th January 2009.
They have: 4 posts
Joined: Jan 2009
Overall a pretty decent site. Clean and Elegant with very clear focus on what you are trying to achieve.
The search seems to be working quite well now with all results containing the searched keywords.
Like the look of you pop up player as well.
I feel the body text color of #797979 could be a lil darker.
The background color on the contact page (bg.jpg) did not load.
The text and background of the recent searches is too similar. Change (#7F7F7F) text color.
Overall though a good site - which succeeds in what its trying to deliver
Cheers
Charan
Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.