Hey I recently decided to dive into the web hosting industry. I was hoping that some of you could review the layout for my new website.

http://www.comphosting.com

None of the links work, I just want some pointers, comments or tips (don't bother going easy, I want the all of your truthful opinions). I know that it works on Netscape 4 and IE 4.

ANYTHING would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

Justin H.

One thing I forgot to mention:
I suck at graphics, so you don't have to remind me (in fact anyone that is/knows a good candadite for text logos, I would be happy to hear from you).

email me jhall@comphosting.com

Umm, where to start!!

Just kidding. There is a few problems I can see though. First and the most obvious to me is the rollover graphics. They seem too big to me on a 800x600 monitor. More importantly they stick out the side of the blue bar down the left to a point where they are right up next to the content text. Above the below is a lot of wasted real estate of solid blue that reaches about 1/4 of the way across the screen (above average amount of width compared to what's generally accepted)

The top blue bar looks a bit odd. It just doesn't seem to fit right to me, especially with the 'part of the comp-city network' logo sticking out to the right there. The font used in the main logo is horrible to me. Handwriting fonts are usually a pretty big no-no when it comes to business sites. It makes things seem less professional. A personal 'human' touch to a site is always nice but when all said and done you have to appear as a company before you do a person. People should be able to read your human qualities in the text content. The design should feel more reputable.

"However, CompHosting.Com didn't stop with simply helping businesses"

I'd change that to "CompHosting.com doesn't stop with...." - you're mixing tense there.

The browser title says Logo Frame so I'd change that to CompHosting or whatever you'd like it named.

Also I took a look at the source code. Frontpage eh? Before I'd post that online I'd go through and strip out all the junk tags to make it load faster. For example:

<!--
// Webs Unlimited's J-BOTS FrontPage 2000 JavaScript Generator version 3.0
// Copyright Webs Unlimited 1998, 1999 All rights reserved - http://WebsUnlimited.com
if(document.images) { imghome = new Image(); imghome.src="images/home_on.gif"; }
//-->

... is a HUGE tag that can be a LOT smaller. I also notice none of your images have height and width tags. I spent quite a while staring at a black white screen watching the progress bar on my browser slowly grow till the page finally showed. Just long enough I would have probably usually started poking my 'back' button. It's something people notice as being less than professional and gets you off on the wrong foot with potential clients.

"Currently CompHosting.Com doesn't offer telephone support"

Neither do I or many other hosts. People will figure that out pretty quick as soon as they look at the support page. It seems pointless to mention it out loud on the front page, as all you're doing is introducing a negative when you should be promoting all the positives of your company. You have that one front page to sell your idea enough for someone to look deeper. Telling people what you don't have will only make them think of going elsewhere.

Other than all that.. looks good so far :)

Greg Moore

Yeah, I totally forgot to check it out at 800x600, I suppose I've gotten to used to 1024x768. Thanks for the tips and as for the logo, I am really no good with graphics, including the rollovers, that's why it probably looks funny. I may just give up and outsource my design. Or maybe take a class on HTML, which I taught myself, which is why my code is sloppy.

As for the rollover JavaScript, I didn't really make that in frontpage, I just found it and was too lazy to go to javascript.internet.com to get the "Non-Frontpage" version.

Thanks for the pointers, very helpful!

Oh, yeah if anyone around here offers web design I would appreciate a quote (probably best through email, so as not to break the rules).

Justin H.