Website Review and Suggestions

**Bacon Butty** · 10:19 AM

Website: http://www.GrandOldTeam.com
What is it?: a vBulletin forum dedicated to an English football (soccer) team. I have tried to make it 'stand out from the crowd' in terms of being a vBulletin forum, whether I have achieved that though is another matter as I am no expert.
Been Online Since: 5th February 2007

Any constructive criticism would be appreciated.

Thanks

**Mviner04** · 05-28-2008, 09:11 AM

I think you have achieved what you set out for. It's a nice looking vBulletin site.

My only suggestion would be to make the seperation of different forums a bit more obvious on the homepage. Sort of looks like just a box full of text and at first it's hard to distinguish between the rows.

Overall, nice job.

**timothynblake** · 05-28-2008, 09:25 AM

pretty good site im also a big football fan it looks like you've done a pretty good job the main thing which i noticed was that most of the images on the site are distorted and poorly cut out which doesn't make it look professional good job anyway keep the good work up.

**wchua24** · 05-28-2008, 09:42 AM

very nice indeed but my suggestion is that in the page its like something is missing u got the whole page...Mviner04 is right you cant distinguish that there are 2 links....by the way im no expert its just my opinion....

**Bacon Butty** · 05-28-2008, 10:12 AM

Cheers lads.

So make the forums more recognisable? Your saying they are too clustered and should be seperated a little bit more?

**Magic Monkey** · 05-29-2008, 06:48 AM

Hey Bacon Butty (top username, btw), personally I think you've succeeded in making it stand out from the rest of the vBulletin crowd. It's a very unique looking forum, and I like the design.

In my humble opinion though, unless you plan to put anything else on the splash page, nice looking as the designs are, it does seem a little redundant. I don't know if anyone else would agree with that, but I spent no time on the first page - I just clicked the link to get to the forum.

**Bacon Butty** · 05-29-2008, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magic Monkey

Hey Bacon Butty (top username, btw), personally I think you've succeeded in making it stand out from the rest of the vBulletin crowd. It's a very unique looking forum, and I like the design.

In my humble opinion though, unless you plan to put anything else on the splash page, nice looking as the designs are, it does seem a little redundant. I don't know if anyone else would agree with that, but I spent no time on the first page - I just clicked the link to get to the forum.

Thanks.

Completely agree, it did have a purpose at one time - directing visitors to different parts of the website but a merger with another site made my site become just forums, and the splash page has to stay for a few more weeks due to an advertising agreement.

**Bacon Butty** · 08-26-2008, 09:44 AM

Made quite a few changes.

Would be great if people could provide feedback.

**jrosworld.com** · 08-26-2008, 10:13 AM

Being an Evertonian myself, I've regularly seen this site appear in Newsnow results. I wouldn't normally view the site from the homepage though, and I like it. I think the bit of text under the heading 'Welcome to Grand Old Team' is a little unnecessary, telling them about how they're going to have to register. In my opinion you want to get your viewers as quickly as possible to the main content of the site, rather than telling them about FAQs & registering. Maybe you could remove that, or at least have it feature less prominently on the homepage. The white space under the headings links seems a little big as well. If you aren't going to use that space for anything, then move the subsequent content further up to get viewers seeing as much as possible when they first get to the page. Really good job though, it looks good.

**Bacon Butty** · 08-26-2008, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrosworld.com

Being an Evertonian myself, I've regularly seen this site appear in Newsnow results. I wouldn't normally view the site from the homepage though, and I like it. I think the bit of text under the heading 'Welcome to Grand Old Team' is a little unnecessary, telling them about how they're going to have to register. In my opinion you want to get your viewers as quickly as possible to the main content of the site, rather than telling them about FAQs & registering. Maybe you could remove that, or at least have it feature less prominently on the homepage. The white space under the headings links seems a little big as well. If you aren't going to use that space for anything, then move the subsequent content further up to get viewers seeing as much as possible when they first get to the page. Really good job though, it looks good.

Yeah totally agree. The welcome text has got to go. Its a default vbulletin feature. It was gone but then I upgraded the software and it appeared back.

White space under the heading links? Not sure were you mean? If you mean at the top under neath horizontal links, it has to have a little space due to the Dixie Dean picture

**pramser** · 08-26-2008, 11:12 AM

I despise forum homepages and pages that set out to make the header a collection of information usually, but this... I really like the direction you went.

The information pane that includes threads of interest at the top looks fantastic and brings some pretty good information to the user at first glance. Plus, it adds what most forum catcher pages/headers don't have and that's a couple pieces for new people to be attracted too. Most forums are too blunt, but yours presents some cool stuff for sports fans to like and below (when they like it) a place to post and talk in about said info. Great for new users, just great.

Works perfect. Colors are a bit hokey in the forum area, but it still works great.

My only complaint's are the giant open area at the very bottom where the new forum topics are displayed (find a way to put it away when there are none or shrink it) and that the registration options (register here) are so small and lost within the text.

**Mr. B** · 08-26-2008, 07:23 PM

Broken when I visited...

Unable to add cookies, header already sent.
File: /home/dannyabl/public_html/forum/includes/class_core.php
Line: 3307

I'll check back later

**Bacon Butty** · 08-27-2008, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. B

Broken when I visited...

Unable to add cookies, header already sent.
File: /home/dannyabl/public_html/forum/includes/class_core.php
Line: 3307

I'll check back later

Was upgrading vBulletin sorry. It'll be fine now.