hillustration — Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:32:48 +0000

Both site look really good. My best suggestion for both site is to consider some way to move up the directory categories higher on the page. There is a significant ammount of scrolling vertically, which I am not a huge fan of. It looks as though you could make some quick changes to reduce the amount of spacing vertically to tighten it up a bit. Other than that, great job!!!

Megan — Sat, 09 Aug 2003 23:54:28 +0000

British Columbia's Business Directory

This one needs more work design-wise. Get rid of those buttons for the navbar and do something simple and elegant with CSS. Also shorten the list of options or divide it somehow to make it easier to find actual content. You could easily divide that list into 3-4 differnt sub-groups. Read up on the "rule of 7".

Now, why is there another navbar underneath there? And why does that one show up on other pages but not the top one? That's confusing.

Oh, and while you're at it, left-align those nav buttons. Centering looks tacky.

Once again you need to work on logo and branding. It might be better for branding to change your domain to somethng more topic specific as well (like bcwebdirectory or something like that). Proudlycanadian.net could be anything really - it doesn't tie into the actual content at all and may cause people to forget about it.

I went to the NHL news page - now why is there a whole page full of proud canadian forward type material at the bottom of this page? That's not NHL news!

Overall layout needs work too but I won't get into that right now. I think you need to focus more on content and business strategy if you want to make a go of it here.

Megan — Sat, 09 Aug 2003 23:45:21 +0000

Web World Index

Typical directory page. You need to work on your logo some but otherwise it's all in the content. You're going to have to look at your competitors here and learn something from their experience. Yahoo got popular partly because of their great content (then, not now) and catchy name and logo. Your name and logo is dull by comparison. Try to do something more catchy with that.

However, as countless examples have shown, you don't need to have a flashy design to be a popular search/directory site, so you're doing well there. Simple and functional but still attractive. Could be a little too yahoo-inspired with the layout though.

On your directory pages, shorten the spacing between list items - there's too much scrolling here (I'm on Sports/Recreation > sports). I'm also only seeing two links here under one of my favourite sports (gymnastics), and I've never heard of either of those sites (try gymn.com, intlgymnast.com, insidegymnastics.com, gymworld.com etc. etc.) You're going to need better directory content to attract a solid audience.

Sidenote: Interesing how Yahoo's directory list isn't even in the fold anymore!

Check us out and submit your site

dmcgill — Sat, 09 Aug 2003 05:50:01 +0000

Hi,

We have been working for ever trying to make all the changes you all have suggested. It has been fun!
check out webworldindex.com and proudlycanadian.net again and be honest. We want to have the search engine that you would like to set as your default page and use every day. Thanks
Dmcgill

red_ghost — Mon, 04 Aug 2003 23:29:40 +0000

It looks pro

mmi — Mon, 04 Aug 2003 18:56:31 +0000

Hey DMcGill

I agree this site looks good and seems to be a useful collection of material.

I'm a copyeditor (only an amateur developer), so I'll focus on that in trying to help you sharpen up your presentation.

Art History - for consistency

The line breaking before the dash in "Recreation & Sports" may be caused by a key return in:

& Sports
-

Or by that non-breaking space (doesn't make much sense). In any event, I'd try to get it up on the first line to be consistent.

Animals Insects & Pets - I figure you don't want to place a comma after "animals" cuz it implies a grouping of "insects and pets." :eek: To mmy thinking, this is where a failure to consitently apply serial commas comes back to haunt you. I'd say using one with an ampersand in pretty awkward, so I'd suggest, "Animals, Insects, and Pets, Aviation ..."

I don't find this completely satisfactory, but you've used commas to separate catagories, so ... Semicolons might offer more flexibility. Of course, this is the only one where it's a problem, so ...

And while I'm mentioning this, you're not consistent in your use of "and" and ampersands.

Travel & Accommodations - By - Region, Hotels, Lodging, .. - You've only got two dots in that ellipsis. And I'm not sure about that second hyphen. Maybe just drop it or use a colon?

You have periods after some of the Internet Marketing Articles. I'd drop them cuz these are blurbs, not sentences. I'd say at least be consistent.

Arts, Books, Family, Games, Preschool, - Why the four spaces after "Books"? Drop the periods after these headings that don't end in ellipses?

Hmm. I guess those are commas, not periods. And I'm guessing you left them out cuz they'd break the line. Oh, all right!

http://www.onelook.com/?w=preschool&last=prescholl&loc=spell1

People - Advice, Families, - You have "Family" in "Kids and Teens." You may want it that way--just noting it.

Regional - Countries, Regions, US States, Web Directories, ...

Top News • World News • USA news - Why cap "news" in the first two but not the others?

Under the listing for Webmaster Resources: JavaScript and DHTML, you might want to consider including Google's #1 ranked site for JavaScript tutorials.

Free E-books - Not required, I'd say, but you do cap it on the page this links to.

Web Design

Free Web Email - You hyphenate "email" on the page this links to.

then click "Find"

Enter the name of an image - I'm not what you mean by "name."

Thank you

dmcgill — Mon, 04 Aug 2003 16:31:03 +0000

Thanks so much for your remarks.

Have a great day

dmcgill

your site

allydog — Mon, 04 Aug 2003 14:11:49 +0000

I think your site looks very professional and easy to navigate.