Please be aware that Andrew has taken over my review and director services, you can submit a Google Pages's site to him at http://andsp13.googlepages.com/submit

 

Not every site crafted in Google Page Creator is brilliant, so you should ensure yours stands out for either good design or great content.

Only Sites Built with Google Page Creator

I will only review and link to sites that have been built with the Google Page Creator. There are plenty of general website review sites out there on the WWW, I want to focus on what can be done with the GPC.

Sites that are created with GPC but hosted elsewhere (like on private or paid for hosting) are a grey area, and will be reviewed case-by-case.

Sites that are customised with expert XHTML and CSS within the GPC are fine, and will be reviewed as normal. Sites that are created outside of the GPC (such as within Dreamweaver, GoLive or FrontPage) and then merely hosted on Google Pages may or may not be reviewed; decisions will be made case-by-case.

Only Great Sites

I accept that this is a judgement call, and that I may be too harsh on some websites, and too exited by others. Opinions are like nostrils, we've all got them, and this site, (Wedgekin's Google Page Reviews) is a showcase for my opinions (I am Wedgekin).

I will happily discuss my decisions with you over Gmail.

To be a Great Google Site, you need great content - you need a real reason to inflict your website on the world. Your daily diary and a picture of your cat do not a great site make. LiveJournal and Blogger are full of that stuff.

You also need a decent design - now I know GPC simply offers templates, so you might offer that the design element is done for you, but that's not the full story.  How you use the templates, how you create your navigation and how you play with the fonts and text of your pages is crucial to the overall design of your site.

If you have failed to provide obvious, simple, consistent navigation then you have already failed to craft a great site.

Sections - Tell Me Where You Want To Be

Please let me know which sections (1 or 2) your site fits in;
sections include:

Magnifying glassTips

 

  • Make the purpose of your site obvious; let me understand what it's all about within 2 seconds; don't make me read a lot of text;
  •  Give me the gift of consistent navigation throughout your site; put the same navigation links on every page, and keep them in the same order and in the same place; seperate the external links from your internal navigation links;
  • Stick with one 'look' - don't use multiple Themes, unless the Themes are very similar, and you change the look to help me understand I'm in a new sub-section;
  • Place some standard links in your footer; I need to get to the top of the page quickly if I've scrolled down a long way; I need to get to the home page easily, I need to be able to find your email address.