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Site Name: Dawnbits
Owner: Bubblez
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 2nd November 2008
Site Name
Dawnbits sounds pretty cool. It’s unique and quite eclectic. I have not yet talked about your layout, but why is ‘Dawnbits’ not on it? If you even use the site name, it should be displayed on your layout.
Bubblez is obviously not your real name, and it’s not a name like ‘Missy’ or other possible names you could have made up – it’s like a noun, like ‘bubbles’ – and I am extremely confused as to what your site name is, even though you have told me that it is ‘Dawnbits’.
You haven’t even included the name in your title. There’s really no point in giving your site a name, when you use an alias as your subdomain that is a noun in itself.
Layout
What really stands out to me is the background. It is much too bright. It’s too rough and the colours contrast so much, it hurts my eyes. A lot. I would recommend changing it to a solid, light colour.
Your header image is nice and I like the colours on it. It’s great you added credit onto the photograph – however, if the image is copyrighted to that website, did they allow you to edit it and use it? If so, it would be best to state ‘image from [site]‘. If not, you shouldn’t be using the image at all.
Like I mentioned, the colours are nice. I don’t think the white lines are necessary though, because they are not the same distance apart and it just ruins the image. You have also used three different fonts, which clash too much. You should really only stick with two at a maximum. All three fonts are in bubble-writing style which just makes things look messy.
You don’t need the word ‘navigation’ on the layout. It’s kind of obvious that it’s the navigation.
Your coding looks okay. In fact, it’s quite good. You can see your errors here. You have a fair few errors but they’re not serious, just some codes that are deprecated with your doctype. I would recommend fixing them because there’s really not many 
Another thing – though your coding is not bad, I can see you’re trying to get a centered look but haven’t quite achieved it. Take a look at this tutorial which shows you how to center your layout.
Your CSS looks okay, but your main text is bold. It looks a little messy. I suggest removing the bold attribute and making the text a bit bigger. Size 8pt instead of 7pt. And you need to differentiate your links from your text. Make them underlined or a different colour that is noticeable.
Other than those problems, your layout looks fine.
Content
In your sidebar, the marquee of ads is a little distracting. It would be better off as a button rotation. Too many moving or animated objects on your site can be attracting unwanted attention from visitors. Instead of looking around your site they’ll look at the ads.
You mention ‘welcome to our site’ in your sidebar. It should be ‘welcome to my site’, because as far as I know, you’re the only owner. It can confuse visitors and make them think you have a co-owner. In your brief introduction you should also start each sentence with a capital letter, even if it’s just one word. You also need to capitalise some of your ‘Best Friends’s names, because their names are proper nouns.
Your buttons under ‘Random Clicks’ are too squished, and your Sitemeter one should be the same size as the others, and you should start a new line after each, because it just looks really squished.
In your disclaimer, you should also stop saying ‘our’. Neopets should be capitalised. Also, you cannot just say Other images belong to rightful owners. Who ARE these rightful owners? You need to give proper credit, otherwise you are in violation of copyright law.
Site
You need another line break after “Interactive/Services Links”. It’s sort of squished and you have a line break after your other subheading so it should be consistent. Also on that note, either capitalise the first letter of your links, or don’t. Not one or the other.
In your affiliate application, you need to stop saying ‘we’. You are only one person maintaining the site. You need a line break after your heading “The requirements”.
you’ll have 1 week on putting our site link up should be ‘you’ll have one week to put our site link up’.
Your heading ‘Will you be accepted…’ should have a question mark at the end.
On your credits page you need to capitalse Neopets, DeviantArt, Sweetandtalented, SelenaGomez, Smileyhelper.. basically everything that is not capitalised. I also notice you have ‘Dawnbits’ credited yet it leads to a different URL. Is that yours as well? If not, you are copying that website’s name and should be more original.
On your FAQ page, Can I be a staff should be ‘Can I be a member of staff’. ‘That is’ should be capitalised, and there should be a period after ‘partners’.
On your site history page, ‘The’ in your title should be capitalised. And who is this ‘she’? You really should refer to yourself in the third person. It makes you sound daft. Now I see that you own that previous subdomain, but how come you don’t have a ‘moved’ sign there? Don’t you want people to find where you’ve gone? And again, STOP referring to yourself as ‘we’.
And for the same reason, ‘Link us’ should be ‘Link me’. And why do people need to bother to email you and why should you be bothered to give people a code? Why don’t you just simply display it in a textbox on this page? You also need to capitalise your title. You’ve done it on the majority of your other pages, so you should do it on this one too.
On your Terms of Usage page – Terms of Usage should be Terms of Use. All your headings are different so sort them out and make them the SAME.
Credit is needed if stated clearly should just be ‘Visible credit is required’. You need a period at the end of this sentence too.
12yrs should be 12 years. You need a period at the end of this sentence as well, to coincide with the rest of your rules.
You also need to add periods to your rules that don’t have any. 3+ does not need the plus sign, and English should be capitalised.
term of use questions should be ‘terms of use questions’
asap should be ASAP.
On your advertising page:
Right now, we will only accept 5 sites at a time. However, spaces are limited. So apply quickly before it becomes closed again!
is contradicting and would be better stated as:
Right now I only advertise 5 sites at a time. If you would like to advertise your site, apply quickly before these spaces are filled!
Also, what is this newsletter for? Maybe it would be more user-friendly to add ‘Alternatively’ at the beginning of this sentence, and link to the newsletter you are referring to. And you need to space out this page because your headings are squished.
On your newsletter page, you don’t need a hyphen in your title. And don’t say ‘Bubblez’. Say I. is illegial should be are illegal. I am glad you noted that celebrity images are illegal .
On your review rules page:
You’re allowing me to critize your good points and bad points.
is incorrect and should be stated as:
You’re allowing me to comment on your good and bad points and give you criticism.
to have honest opinion should be ‘to give an honest opinion’.
In your criteria, you don’t need to mention ‘you chose’ as you have already said ‘your colour scheme’. CSS should be capitalised. And why aren’t you reviewing every page? What kind of review is that? I’m going through every page of your site right now and I don’t think it’s an effective review if you don’t even look at everything.
You need to use periods and question marks here! You always leave a lot of sentences without them.
Visuals
You have a little question mark symbol in your heading – fix that up – and was otherwise stated should be ‘is otherwise stated. Neopets should be capitalised, as do your links. It’s terms of USE, not usage.
I suggest making the hiatus signs thumbnails to the larger image so people don’t have to copy the URL.
Again on your icons page – terms of USE, not usage. Ditto for the colour palettes.
Reads
A lot of these links and program and website names should be CAPITALISED.
In your thumbnails tutorial, Paint should be capitalised. Same for ‘Read terms..’ and your subheadings.
Capitalisation is needed for the host names in your free hosts. A few times you have failed to capitalise PHP.
This website also have a limited file size, space usage and limited bandwidth.
should be:
This website also has limited file size, space, and bandwidth.
does not support PHP support should be ‘does not include PHP support’.
Capitalise PHP, FTP and Cutenews in your Cutenews tutorial. And you didn’t explain chmoding so your tutorial isn’t great for beginners.
In your website tips – bubblez’s opinions should be ‘Bubblez’s opinion’.
Under ‘be original’ (which should be capitalised) you have contradicted yourself:
this means you are not copying some else’s idea for something. This does not bring you any visitors. It just shows that you are not talented at all and is a copycat.
That should be:
This means you are not copying someone else’s idea for something. Copying does not bring you visitors. It just shows that you are not talented and are a copycat.
Paint IS a graphics program, and you are entirely contradicting yourself by saying made in a graphic program. Your entire paragraph SHOULD be:
No one wants to use graphics that look ugly, low-quality, have a “made-in-Paint” look and lack effort. More people will use your graphics if they are high-quality and show that you spent time working on it.
I make some of my graphics in Paint, like my pixels, so you don’t need to talk about other graphics programs as opposed to Paint here.
Further errors in this paragraph:
Your layout should be nice, organized and easy to find your content. It should also be previewed in the most common browsers such as: firefox, internet explorer, safari & etc.
That would be better written as:
Your layout should be nice, organized and your content should be easy to find. It should also be previewed in common browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.
your visitors needs should be ‘your visitors need‘
makes your page looks should be ‘makes your page look‘
I hate sites who uses should be ‘I hate sites that use‘.
I find your statement on ‘correct grammar and spelling’ ironic as you have a lot of punctuation mistakes in your website.
Originality
I appreciate how you don’t use celebrity graphics. Your layout was quite unique, but as for your content, it seemed really generic and there was nothing I could really put points on.
The newsletter’s a great idea, but you should expand that to make it more interesting – pictures maybe, actually send the newsletter out – that kind of thing.
Organisation/Errors
Fairly well done except for the punctuation errors and the headings that were squished.
Overall comment
Bubblez, your site was really standard and quite simple and easy to navigate which I liked. However the layout needs a little work. The graphic is nice, but try to make it less cluttered, and remove the background! It’s striking and not very impressing.
Your content is lacking, but your graphics that you have are quite good. You need work on your writing:
- CAPITALISE names – they are proper nouns! Even your own name!!!!!!
- Be consistent. If you use capitals in your links, use them in all. If not, don’t use them at all. You know what I mean.
- STOP referring to yourself as ‘we’.
- I would think of a better alias than ‘Bubblez’ if I were you. It gets confusing and it makes you seem a little immature.
Good luck with your site!
