Can you review my blog?

**summer14** · 05:00 PM

Hello guys, I'm just wondering and asking for your opinions on my blog. I just want hear comments with those do not now much. Here's the link

http://webdesignprofessionals.blogspot.com

**vangogh** · 04-23-2008, 06:58 PM

It looks good. Nice clean design and I think the colors work well.

One thing you might want to consider are all the widgets in the sidebar. I'm not sure they all belong. For example you have one widget showing sports scores, but there's no indication your blog has anything to do with sports. I would try to keep the widgets that are relevant to the topic of your blog and to drop those that aren't relevant.

**davidshaw** · 04-23-2008, 07:28 PM

The sidebar needs to be scaled down, to many slow loading widgets in there.

Keep things simple to begin with, dont just chuck loads of widgets in, as they make the page look untidy!

**Arleigh** · 08:49 AM

I like its design. It looks clean and neat with using white background. But I think you need to lessen the use of your widgets. This will slow the loading of your page.

**theIpanemic** · 05-02-2008, 10:21 AM

I agree with others about the sidebar widgets; some seem unrelated to the central focus of the blog. I like the layout, though. It would be nice to see a more firm divider between the main body and the sidebar. Good content.

**Plugin-Developer** · 05-02-2008, 09:48 PM

OP - I really like the design that you've got up there. It's slick, clean, and professional. The paragraphs might have a little too much margin on the bottom, but its not that big of a deal.

I think the biggest problem is that you're calling yourself an SEO professional, but you don't even have your own domain. That's a huge danger sign to me as someone looking for SEO services. You should be running this blog on your own domain with your own hosting. That will go miles more towards proving your professionalism than a slick design will.

**Rachel Rofe** · 05-03-2008, 04:45 PM

Wow, there are quite a few widgets.

I'd scale down the search function at the top too, and
only go with one website. It looks kind of clunky, and it's
certainly not making you any money.

And if you want to advertise for SEO, I'd take out all the
other links about music/Heroes/etc.

Other than that, nice attempt!

**vicdigi** · 05-03-2008, 05:07 PM

You have a very nice clean cut design.
There are however faults on your site which I would deem as being quite major - the blue area in the footer of your site all over the place.
A smaller problem is the right side of your site looks like it is cutting text off!

**qiwoman** · 05-03-2008, 09:03 PM

I love the clear azure blue and the simplicity of the design. Maybe like others said it looks too busy on the sidebar, otherwise content and style are wonderful and you are going the right way about things.

**tamar** · 05-04-2008, 04:15 PM

I'm in agreement on the widgets. The sports one is out of place, the RSS feeds widget talks about medicine (?!), you have a random Heroes image there (I like Heroes, don't get me wrong, but why is it there?), and there's a shoutbox. The shoutbox is more for fun than professionalism, I think.

And I'm not sure why you need the current time. It kind of bloats the sidebar.

But otherwise, it's pretty good.

**tamar** · 05-04-2008, 04:19 PM

Ah, hold the phone...

Are you posting original content? I see this post here, for example: http://webdesignprofessionals.blogsp...n-30-days.html

I know Frederick Townes personally (he works with me). If I asked him if he gave you permission to republish that post, would he say yes?

If the answer is no, please don't infringe on copyrights. That's not the way to "build" a blog.

**tamar** · 05-07-2008, 12:01 AM

summer14, did you go away? The copyright issue is relatively important (especially if you didn't have permission to repost that content) -- and you will need to fix it or people will get you for duplicate content penalties...

**yankees51** · 05-07-2008, 12:22 AM

Tamar, I actually believe in dupe content penalties, although if you read the Google thread there is a sticky saying Google does not penalize. I have read their stance on the issue too but I believe you end up in the supplemental results if tagged.

Summers a Bummer

**VOID Pheonix** · 05-07-2008, 03:17 PM

"One way to avoid clutter is to use external JavaScripts, instead of placing them inside a page. This means that they should be put in an external file (a tag in the page calls the script, which is then pulled from a different file on the web server). Doing this will make your life easier for a number of reasons, not including the SEO benefits. First of all, you can have a library of all the scripts on your site in one directory. You can then change your HTML code without worrying about damaging the scripts. It also makes for less download time when the script is used on several pages because the browser will cache the script after downloading it once."

I'll get back to your page in a moment or two...
My own blog has a LOT of external Javascript which results in several things; some of them are good, some not so...

What strikes me IMMEDIATELY is the effect of the NoScript addon for Mozilla browsers. This blocks ALL unknown scripts by default. Most of my site is locked out (by default), as is yours. For a great percentage of our viewable pages it's a disaster. Nobody can see what we intend! When I get a list covering most of the right half of my screen of all the blocked scripts I have to try to determine which are what I want, which might be harmful...

To see what I mean, go to my blog with NoScript and a Mozilla browser running at full tilt! Please, keep in touch. We, as do others, have a common issue.

All the best, voidScribe

**tamar** · 05-07-2008, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yankees51

Tamar, I actually believe in dupe content penalties, although if you read the Google thread there is a sticky saying Google does not penalize. I have read their stance on the issue too but I believe you end up in the supplemental results if tagged.

Summers a Bummer

I've seen Google take action on this if reported. I'm just hoping summer is heeding this advice and didn't shy away from the conversation because s/he was caught! If anything, I'm hoping to educate -- I *hate* it when people do this.

**VOID Pheonix** · 05-07-2008, 03:34 PM

SAY WHAT?! Copyright infringement? You'll get no more help from me until this is resolved. I just read the rest of the replies to this post. I will NOT be returning to your site without confirmation of original content or proper authorization of use. This must be accompanied by recognized academic/professional citation. Until then, I wash my hands of you...

**yankees51** · 05-07-2008, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tamar

I've seen Google take action on this if reported. I'm just hoping summer is heeding this advice and didn't shy away from the conversation because s/he was caught! If anything, I'm hoping to educate -- I *hate* it when people do this.

I agree with you - it takes time to formulate thoughts and convict them to the web (or paper) - why should people blatantantly steal? (and try to get credit)

I hate it too!

**Rajaie** · 05-07-2008, 08:08 PM

Too many widgets in the sidebar and I think that you should add some images to your posts

**eijay** · 05-07-2008, 08:13 PM

The Looks of the site are ok but i like your opinions on search engines. overall A+

**localhost8080** · 05-11-2008, 05:09 PM

lol, im guilty myself of 'collecting' information for my blog, but i always have a link to the original content and i always label it as a direct rip from another site, and always give my opinion on it =)
this way you can (kindof0 get away with reposting a snippet of the original article, since you are referencing it