This thread is here to offer a place where Gazette readers can contribute their favorite ways to drive away visitors on a web site.

The following are my 10 favorites:

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Let's face it. It is really hard to come up with new ways to fully irritate visitors to your site.

I thought I would share some ways that I have found to irritate visitors and drive them away thereby saving you money on your hosting bills. These tips are not in order according to their effectiveness, however #1 is by far the most effective. For 100% effectiveness, use any three of these techniques.

1. Install a script to disable everyone's right mouse click button. When someone tries to right-click, be sure to pop up a really insulting warning that accuses them of trying to steal your secret HTML code. Disabling the right click button will allow you to:

Keep the visitor from bookmarking your site
Keep the visitor from using the forward and back browser functions
Keep the visitor from opening your links in a new window
Keep the visitor from stopping a slow loading or hung page
Keep the visitor from using the Reload function to correct a display problem
Keep the visitor from printing your secret content
Keep the visitor from using such illegal tools as the Google site information tool

Admittedly the visitors can do all of these things with the buttons at the top of the browser, but maybe they won't know that and simply go away as you intended when you disabled their dangerous right-click button.

2. Create a really long page then starts playing your favorite song and put the stop and volume controls at the very bottom of the page. This will make sure they do one of the following:

- Listen to the entire song all the way through 5 times while reading your content, which proves them worthy of experiencing your site
- Try desperately to find the Stop button
- Go somewhere else to stop the song from playing.

3. Decide in advance what screen resolution your visitors must use in order to see your pages. It is absolutely a great way to drive them off when they have to scroll from side to side to read sentences of information. You can make this 100% effective by making your pages so wide that no monitor can display it.

4. The really professional irritator will not settle for just one obscure browser plug-in. Go for the gold. Use several bloated plug-ins that no one has already installed. This should drive away all newbies because they usually have no idea how to install even one plug-in, much less three. Experienced surfers will be glad to spend 20 minutes installing plug-ins to view your unique content.

5. When the visitor arrives at your site, be sure to pop up at least two ads behind their browser window and a minimum of two ads in front of their window. This will give them lots of options in where to go now that they have been sufficiently irritated to desire to leave right away. Even more important is the way you treat the occasional hard case that actually stays on your site after all of your efforts. When they leave, remind them to never return. Start popping up windows all over their monitor with windows that multiply every time they try to close them.

6. Sign up to use a really slow-loading hit counter and put the button inside of a TABLE so that nothing appears until the hit-counter responds. This is possibly the best way to keep visitors from stealing from you as it keeps them from even reading your content and possibly typing it into their site from memory. For this to work reliably, you must avoid putting the height and width into the call for the hit counter graphic. You can improve the effectiveness of this technique by inserting not only a hit counter button, but a long string of banner exchange banners.

7. For the occasional visitor that inadvertently makes their way to your ezine subscription form, fear not. All is not lost. You can still rid yourself of them by asking lots and lots of personal questions. Don't just ask for their email address. Ask for their mailing address, phone number, sex, age, hobbies, religion, race and some other things best not discussed here. This technique works equally well when applied to your order forms and minimizes your trip to the UPS office to ship products.

8. Splash page. You gotta have a Splash Page. Lots of slow loading animation. If you can combine this with the requirement to download another obscure plug-in, you'll have hit a home run. I'm especially impressed by the many sites that have upped the ante to include two splash pages before you ever get to even the first word of content. Stunning! Brilliant!

9. Reconfigure the visitor's browser window. This will drive them crazy! People hate it when you run a script on your pages that expands the user's browser window to fill the entire screen and then do away with all of the browser Toolbar features such as the Navigation Toolbar and the Location Toolbar,

10. Finally, an oldie but goodie. Make your background dark and your text just a shade or two brighter. This makes it impossible to read your text and will rid you of visitors before they have a chance to clog up you server logs. If this is not possible on your site, use the alternate technique of putting most of your content in PDF files so that the visitor has to download them and launch another application. Very effective.

Did I mention that all of these cool ways to irritate visitors work even better at driving away the people reviewing your site for places like Yahoo, LookSmart and other directories to whom you've paid large sums of money to review your site and add it to their directory?

Can I pull my tongue out of my cheek now? It's getting sore.

[This message has been edited by Jim (edited 02-05-2001).]

Another oldie, but goodie.

11. Under no circumstances include the price of your products on the same page as the description of the product. To satisfy the lawyers, you'll need to put the prices somewhere on the site, but a good hiding place is the Shopping Cart. Your customers will never think to look there because they want to know the price before they agree to buy.

12. Make especially sure your visitors remain clueless about the shipping charges until they have completed their order. Then they are overjoyed to discover the shipping charges are twice the cost of the product.

[This message has been edited by OAC (edited 02-05-2001).]

13. Be diligent in not revealing which credit cards you accept until visitors have gone through the first 3 screens of your checkout program. This is especially useful if you do not accept American Express like the people at http://www.half.com

14. Don't forget to use redirects on your links from your home page! This is especially sucessful when the redirect provides no means of getting back to the page your visitor started at. Don't forget, they never wanted to explore any other areas of the site anyways.

15. Create really challenging links strategies. People love challenges. Have lots of pages that do not link back to your home page. This way they look around for a while, then resort to the back button. This works very well when people bookmark a page. Then they have to figure out a strategy for getting any more information from your site. And, by all means, do NOT put your navigation on every page--this blows the whole concept of challenge.

For additional challenge, make the links you do have on a page to pages that do not exist. People will giggle when they fall into that "404" trap, and they realize they were dumb.

There is an extension to this that you can use too. When you send out emails, don't have a signature at the bottom with a link to your site. this way when they get your email, they have to figure out who it was from, and what site they are getting a response from. They will feel really great about themselves when they can figure this out by themselves--and they will feel better about you too!

16: Never put your email address or 'snail mail' address on your site (especially not on a 'Contact Us' page linked from the front page). Nobody really needs to contact you, and they've got no need for the extra feeling of 'security' that a proper address provides. Same with telephone numbers.

17: Provide no method other than credit card payments for people to buy things off you. Checks/cheques are out-moded and should be oblished at once. After all, everybody has a credit card (especially in Europe)....

18: Don't tell people that you only ship to the USA/Canada. Wait for them to send you the order, you to process the credit card details and then, just as you are about to post it, inform them you can't send it.

19. Make sure your site is colorful! Use vast expanses of super-bright colors that cause them to strain and squint. Give them that staring-into-the-sun effect, and use text colors that force their eyes to constantly readjust as they try to read your text. Remember, you are not giving them a real "Web experience" unless looking away from the screen causes their color perception to shift dramatically.

20. Use the above techniques to disguise the fact that you had nothing to say anyway and didn't bother to write much of anything. This can be dramatically furthered through the use of strategically placed flashing banners and images to distract them from reading.

21. Use really t-i-n-y type as a "design element." And use CSS to make sure they can't enlarge the fonts. The heck with trying to read it -- they should be admiring your sophisticated design!

Corollary: all designers should have extra-large monitors set at stratospheric resolutions, and by no means should they ever test their designs on "normal" sized monitors and resolutions. After all, the Web is not about communication, it's about design.

22. Use enough JavaScript code to make even the most accomplished pro at Microsoft 'ooh' and 'ahh' in appreciation of your incredible programming skills. Be sure to combine sufficent popup alert boxes (with requisite nonsensical messages), scrolling DHTML news panels, slide out menus, rollovers, image swaps and script errors to create a veritable hodgepodge of aneurysm inducing effects which will have them running for cover -if not killing them outright.

23. Make the first, second and third links on your homepage (enticingly titled "Our Product/Price List," "Shipping Information," and "How to Contact Us") point to a single page that simply states "Under Construction. Will be completed March 1998." Only the fourth, fifth, etc. links on your home page should actually point to content. Boring and passe, but very effective.

.

[This message has been edited by loy (edited 02-06-2001).]

24a. Have a black Flash animation on a black BG splash page load for 5 minutes while forgetting to insert a preload message. Leaving the only way for the visitor to "discover" that you have a "cool" intro loading for them, is by right clicking and viewing your source.

24b. Furthermore, when it does load by no means should you insert a "skip intro" button. This way everyone will admire your vecotored image design skills.

[This message has been edited by xelA (edited 02-06-2001).]

25. Be sure to use that nifty Java lake applet that makes your logo or images look cool. Also be sure you have at least 2-3 other Java applets running on the same page also.

26. Have multiple midi's running on the same page, so they all play at once.

Use Java Applets - real Java. Make them long and complicated so that they take years to load. Don't forget to put a few programming errors in them - people will HATE it when after 5 minutes they discover that they waited so long just in order to be able to look at an empty gray box instead of the detailed menu you promised them! Do NOT provide alternative non-Java means to navigate or otherwise get at the content of your site. What is also good is if the applet is so buggy that their browser crashes.

Combine the Java deterring method with the splash page method to irritate your visitors and they will never, ever come back!

Ah, and that is the best:

(28) Don't wait another second -- make sure you crash their browser instantly.

29. Writing titles of pages, text URLs thread topics (jim )in caps. Really tells you visitors you stand firm on your beliefs.

30 - Include links to graphics and files that are on your hard drive (ie in the format http://c:/mysite/title.gif or file://c:/mysite/title.gif).
31 - Include a meta refresh taking people to file://c:\con\con , windows users will just love the BSOD that will magically appear.

Start off every site with your Mission Statement to show your enterprise gets into every business fad that comes along. I know one e-commerce website that has both a MS and a Vision Statement.

A retailer with both a Mission and a Vision! I thought only people like Mother Theresa operated at such a high spiritual level.

Also mention you donate a portion of your revenue to a charity. Of course, don't say how much. Better yet, donate a portion of PROFITS to charity and pay yourself a million a year salary, eliminating a profit.

33) Use a repeating one-pixel-background. This makes scrolling impossible on most computers.
Also use scripts that require at least 128Mb ram. I've tried that(long ago).

34) At the risk of bending some bubbles including Jim's, I think sound files add a lot to otherwise average pages. It's easy to make them play only once and then shut off, if you are worried about being accused of doing something to "prove your visitors are worthy of experiencing your site". A midi file can add a third dimension to a page, and heaven forbid even add to the entertainment experience of viewing the page. I find it curious that often people who know the most about programming and html have the worst sense when it comes to making a webpage palatable to the eye. Of course you can make a page that looks and 'feels' good and still have all the content you intended, it just takes a bit more time and creativity to make it that way. Doing anything less is just trying to appeal to the programmers familiar but old excuse of 'content is king and anything else is just a waste of my and my viewers precious time'. That's often a recipe for a dull site, and such content despite your best efforts, may not be enough to prevent boredom. I may very well be in the minority on this point, but I thought it needed to be said. I know I don't spend much time on the big portals like Yahoo and shopping sites. Gee, isn't it great how fast some of them load. But often they are just an overload of information without much else if you ask me, and I want to be entertained at least a little if I'm going to view a site.

Special effects like javascript, sound files, flash effects, all have their place on the web, as long as they aren't too terribly long loading. I've never seen a fast loading site give me much of anything worth looking at visually, so I'm willing to wait around awhile for slower-loading, better looking and sounding sites. I think more people would do the same, if webmasters did their jobs a little better.

35) Ah yes, a great way to get someone to click off any forum while in the process of posting a message, is to have a forum software that makes you redo your entire post if you happen to type in your password wrong...and please don't ask me why I mention this here! Apparently when I registered here my password wasn't accepted, although it didn't let me know this until I submitted my post here, and then the post was gone. I can really use some music right about now.

edscars, sorry for the trouble.
What you say is true. There is always room for artistic expression; it is, after all, web design. We're just detailing some of the more troublesome aspects of website building.

Or do what this [edited - please pick an alternative word: guy, dude, man,] does on his site when you click one of the Form Buttons to get to one of the pages for his programs!!!
http://www.weblines.bizland.com/

Mind you, this site already has maybe a few of the top 10 things to chase you off, but you have just got to click one of his buttons and see what happens.. It not only is freaking annoying.. It totally Ticked me Off!!

I work at a Freeware Site, and it's things like what you mentioned in your newsletter that get submissions to our site lost. Not sure what happens either.. I get the submission, I go check out the site to insure that the program is freeware, I run into a site that has one of the annoying things mentioned in your newsletter, then back to my email client, and for some reason, the submission is no longer there. I just can't figure out what happens to them! Hehehehehehehe ;-)

Best regards,
-Garrett

Welcome to the forums bro, in your future posts can you please tone it down a bit. Gracias

[This message has been edited by xelA (edited 02-11-2001).]

36) Allow your visitors to sign-up for your "super smashing great" weekly newsletter, and then fill said newsletter with one sentence from you, a list of potentially interesting articles in the contents details, and then a tonne of advertising links the whole way down. But also include an "unsubscribe" link that, when clicked on, creates a pop-up window that does absolutely nothing...

About as frustrating as they come - I've been trying to unsubscribe from one site that does this for nigh-on 2 months.

37) Once a visitor leaves your site to go somewhere else, a pop-up should appear, preferably covering their entire screen, urging them to join your mailing list or whatever. People shouldn't leave. There's nothing on those other sites that they can't find on yours.

38) Create site about WWW design and promotion.
Subscribe to e-zines and newsletters (e.g. JimWorld Gazette).
Translate articles from newsletters to your site language (e.g. Polish).
Publish this article on your site/send in your newsletter as your own work. You must be the best!!! And add everywhere information about your rights...
Visitors love to be idiots. Or maybe they love law-breakers?
Anyone interested in Polish version of articles from JimWorld Gazette can find them here: http://webresources.help.pl/artykul.php?id=55

I dont know if this is annoying enough for this list but

101) Use JavaScript to put the current date and time on your page, and then move onto a new project and dont update anything on the site for a few months or years --> That makes it look like you are right on top of the site although all your external links are dead and your text is horribly outdated (maybe even with dates)

Welcome to my Site! Today is 2/13/2001 and it's 5:05pm!

News: 6/20/1999 I'm sorry I haven't updated this site in a while, I am working on a New Site Design! Stay Tuned!

radzimir, that isn't your site is it?

I did a little looking around and ran some stuff through a Polish-English translator. The page with this thread is pretty obvious, but can you point me to other Gazette article pages?

I most likely don't want to shut the webmaster down, but I do want it presented with proper credits at least.

Sign up for other people's ezines using an email address attached to one of those autoresponders that keep sending "follow up" messages every day.

Send "Special One Time Messages" each week telling your subscribers about the latest hair-brained MLM scam you've found.

My favorite is MOUSE TRAILS that pulsate and follow the user throughout the site! It has really worked for my current employer to drive users away from our site. That is, if the revolving, dot-matrix clock telling me the local time didn't do it first!

[This message has been edited by BettyGoat (edited 02-17-2001).]

Jim, you want to globalise the forums ( http://searchengineforums.com/Forum18/HTML/000136.html )? You've already got a Polish one

43) Put everything in <blink> – </blink>

44) Ask for their email for "upcoming
events that might be of intrest to you", and send them ads (I think you can get paid now –– like 2 cents for every person you send an ad to for some services...

45) This is explained in part before, but here in more detail: Have 5 popup windows (full screen size, even larger) that pop up when you load the page, each contaning your pages content, or better ads that you get paid 2-4 cents per view for. For every window you try to close, 5 more pop up!

46) If you have a forum, delete all of the usefull info and keep all of the spam

47) (This is PROVEN 100% Effective) Delete the site and replaced it with a page that forwards to an affiliate page. (Yes, they can force-quit or shutdow/restart [if they are lucky], but will they be coming back [soon]? Hehe! Mission Acomplished!

[This message has been edited by charliecss (edited 02-19-2001).]

< 2347. > Use an insanely large and colorfull background image - and then LOCK the background image.

Build your site with all content either direct links to affiliate programs or articles about XYZ(yet another affiliate program)

Hehe, this thread is cool, keeps growing..and growing...

Umm...number 50?

Be sure to take the user to a blank page, use a javascript to change the page color at least 20 times, then redirect at least 5 more times, each time changing colors of the background.

[This message has been edited by icehouse (edited 02-22-2001).]

51) To ensure your pages display correctly, run a browser detection script. Resultingly, any person using "Opera" will reach a page saying "Your browser does not support frames or javascript. Please download one that does."

52) Be sure to sign up for newsletters or other form subscription requests with a hidden e-mail - then the webmaster will have to write you personally - this gives you more attention and helps the webmaster find something to do with that few seconds of their time.

This has allot of great info so this is just a bump! Feel free to add to it.

* Now that the BLINK tag is filtered out by many browsers to remain static, use a graphic (preferably several) that achieve the same effect.

* Liberally sprinkle animated GIFs around the page that have no relevance to the content. Make sure you don't get them professionally designed - the more tacky and amateurish the animation the better.

* Don't close any of your tags. The benefit of this is that those poor souls using old browsers (particularly on a Mac) will crash the computer. Result!

* Make sure that your only method of navigation is a Flash menu. Provide no other method of navigation (well of course, *everyone* has Flash don't they?)

* Always use the absolutely latest version of every plugin available and ensure that you insert at least one feature that makes it incompatible with previous versions.

* Make your rollover (hover) text links the same colour as the background so they disappear when a user puts their mouse over.

* Put a rude message in the NOFRAMES section (assuming you even bothered) along the lines of 'You're scum get a better browser (like IE is a *better* browser???)

* Use screwy script that tells you that you have the wrong browser or screen resolution, even when you blatantly have it set correctly. Refuse to load the main content. Don't even assume the user might still be able to get something from your site at a different resolution/setting.

* Use a pop-up box asking for the visitor's name on entry. Don't use cookies to store this (I mean it's not remotely annoying the first time either)

* Constantly refer to 'right clicking', Start menus, Windows 98, taskbars, C drive, D drive, A drive. Because *everyone* uses a Microoft laden x86 PC don't they? (OK it might not drive people away)

[This message has been edited by handyandy (edited 05-14-2001).]

1. Getting entry pop ups from about.com ads on every site I visit to buy a dumb mini camera.
2. and the equally irritating "you have one message" pop up.
3. Exit advertising.
3. Sites that wont let you go back, I hate nothing more that being an hour into a google search and loose my place cause I cant go back. (usally a book mark us now page, once your there you cant go back, which ever button you hit goes forward and no matter how fast you are you cant hit back fast enough)
4. My WORSE is the pounding of constant pop ups so bad that the only way to stop them is to completely shut down all brouser windows.

I do one pop up, my own and it's set for once per brouser session, it will not display again! Point taken on disable right click and I will change on up dates.

[This message has been edited by Kenny (edited 05-17-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Kenny (edited 05-17-2001).]

My personal favorite..

68) Design your website so that upon loading it instantly freezes and locks your visitors computer rendering every single key except the reset/power switch useless.

ArrGH! Why do people do this?

Oh Sinoed! Well now that explains my last visit to your site!

Use JavaScript to shake the user's browser!

And as far as this problem:

"3. Sites that wont let you go back, I hate nothing more that being an hour into a google search and loose my place cause I cant go back. (usally a book mark us now page, once your there you cant go back, which ever button you hit goes forward and no matter how fast you are you cant hit back fast enough)"

If I'm understanding this correctly, I get around sites like this by right clicking on the back button and selecting the site before the one I can't get out of.

[This message has been edited by jan (edited 05-22-2001).]

Thanks jan,
Never noticed that. Thanks for the great tip. Kenny

LOL xelA!

My #1 way to prevent anyone from ever coming back to a site is to include multiple onUnLoad( ) event handlers that keep popping up widows faster than I can close them!!! Guaranteed to prevent return visits --- once they actuall do finally leave!!!

make sure you add that nifty program 'comet cursor' so it can self install and make your visitors wonder why they have this new button in their tray. People love having no control of what is installed on their computers

I think this is up to about 60, I don't get the gazette (will sign up next!), so I am a little late in reading all this, but hear is my bit.

60) Create your site in frames with no navigation on the inner pages, that way when they arrive from a search engine they wont be able to find the rest of your site.

61) Frighten your visitor off directly by saying Hello (visitor's name) how is the weather this afternoon in (visitor's home town).

62) Use page transitions to create a LSD flash back affect, that way your old hippy visitors will switch their computer off and go get some rest!

63) Create a website for a major corporation all in flash and forget to mention their name and product in the source code. That way no-one can find it without the URL.

64) Everyone knows it is hard to be heard on the Internet with all those other pages out there. Shouting at your visitor should put them right off. Use all caps, all bold huge text.

65) Make sure you defame and tear down your competitors. This will really help to drive of potential clients.

66) Get the marketing firm that designed your brochure to put it up on-line with so little information and interaction that your visitor will disconnect to call you long distance for more information.

67) Make sure all your navigation is hidden inside a java applet that takes 20 minutes or more to download. This works really well if you have a great product that you want to keep for yourself. Put a different java applet on the next page just incase they have waited and got through.

68) Create a huge information site or directory and promote it as the official and definitive guide to your subject. Then make sure you only add links to the limited number of websites you have created. Visitors will be so annoyed they will never come back.

69) Make sure you let your visitor know that you are the very best and the only one in the world that can help them, that is a great turn off too!

I feel better now! Thanks to all prior posters and Jim, you have all made my day.

70) Purchase a domain name, then build a site that has absolutely nothing to do with the name at all. That way, when someone has a question about META tags for example, and assumes that they can most likely find what they need at http://www.metatags.com/ , your page with all your Amazon.com referral links will come up, instead of the boring content that your visitor was looking for. As an added bonus, not only will your visitor most likely leave, but they'll probably remember that your site has nothing to do with your oh-so-descriptive URL, and never come back again. Cool!

71) Instead of boring old text, use 1.2 MB graphic files containing text. Not only does this discourage visitors with low-bandwidth connections, it keeps away those pesky sight-impaired visitors who depend on text.

72) Ask for visitors' Zip codes before allowing them to enter. This ensures that them pesky dangerous foreigners from far-away, exotic countries like Canada and the UK can't pollute your website by actually viewing it. (Or it makes them lie.)

73) String non-American visitors along. Allow them to order merchandise by filling out a form that takes 10 minutes to be processed by your server, *then* tell them that you only ship to the US. I can guarantee that not only will they never return, they'll tell everyone they know not to visit.

74) (a personal peeve) Refuse to send things by regular mail. Insist on sending everything via UPS, no exceptions, even if it means your Canadian client has to pay a $35.00 customs brokerage charge on a $3.00 item. Another great way to prevent repeat visits.

75) Use graphics that blink so fast that people with photosensitive epilepsy go into seizure.

76) Use sound the visitor can't shut off. Ensure that visitors can fully enjoy your site's MIDI version of "My Heart Will Go On" by running a script to shut off Real Audio and Windows Media should either be running when a visitor opens your home page. After all, what's more important - your visitor's right to listen to music he prefers (or to none at all), or Design!

77) Never, but never, make it easy for a visitor to find your business's telephone and fax numbers. Hide them so that visitors are forced to go through page after page if they want to contact you in real life.

78) Provide prominent links to extremist political associations. This is certain to make prospective clients worried about whether their money is actually going to the Michigan Militia, Operation Rescue, Islamic Jihad or any other wingnut group.

79) Another way to really confuse people is to give people the option to change the language of your site but don't let them change it back to english.

To save on bandwidth, try using my comet cursor to make sure that people don't keep coming back to your website. I like the way it installs on your computer without receiving permission from you first. I had to uninstall it 3 times last week.

81) In the shopping area, make sure the photos are too small to actually see the product well. Do not describe the actual stuff, just say things like "It looks so cute!!!!".
82) Ensure no one will ever order from you twice by shipping the wrong size and color. After the fact, inform the customer that what they oredred is not in stock, but if they return what you just sent them (at their cost) you will replace their order with another equally miss sized/colored product.

83) Create your entire site in Micro$loppy-bloatware-Office! It will add so much unnecessary code people will need 20 gig hd's to steal your content!

84) Use tables within tables within tables within tables to at LEAST 9 levels. Putting a new table inside a single cell works really well!! Frontpage is super for creating them easily. Good luck loading the page at all never mind in Netscape!

85) Make absolutely sure your pages ONLY display in the very latest verson of MSIE.

86) Make your customers email you for shipping costs outside the US; take 2 weeks to reply; only give an approximate cost not an actual one; make sure you charge at least double the actual amount;
ALWAYS ask the nice lady in the Post Office NOT to obscure the stamps with the frank marks so that the recipient can clearly see the low amount of postage you actually paid!

Don't forget the basics -- Don't put a title on your page, or leave the default from your editor's wizard, so that anyone that has bookmarked your page will never find it again.

How many pages could they have bookmarked as "Homepage" anyway?

Make users register on the first page to even view your content. People love to fill out forms!

To really irritate them, have your form require non-standard formatting, such as spaces in credit cards, but don't tell them until they submit the form. Make them feel stupid on the next page with something like YOUR CREDIT CARD INFORMATION IS INCORRECT!!!! USE YOUR BACK BUTTON TO CORRECT THIS FIELD!!! in bold, red type, without telling them what they did "wrong." Force them to fill out the entire form again.

91) Create a site designed around a national tragedy such as the 09/11 attacks and use this site to actively market a "new" product or service that capitalizes on a jittery nation in the aftermath.

92) Be sure to send some "helpful", "friendly" and "informative" spam from the above site for protection services (as an example) which only costs $10 a month..

Absolutely infuriating!

93. Ensure credit card payment form only has space for only 2 letters to indicate the state in which you live. This is sure to enrage anyone from outside the US who lives in a state with a 3 letter abbreviation eg. QLD (Australia) because the credit card provider refused approval of the transaction, due to the address not matching their records.

95) Calculate how many uppercase characters have been entered automatically and refuse to allow the user to go any further. Especially the intelligent ones (like a leading search engine) that would not allow me to enter a 90 char description because the first two characters were uppercase. Can't I start with 'UK based ...'?

2 and 3 letter state codes? Try the UK. Try fitting 'County Durham' or 'West Midlands' into two characters!

95 straight after 93? Well, I think my number should be 94.

I was often irritated by the fact that on sites targeting international audience various forms has a required"state" field. In many European countries you simply do not indicate state or province if you live in a capital or a large city. Moscow, Russia is just Moscow, Russia, but if one skips the "state" field one gets an error message.

96) add 10 000 tonnes of text and use no images so it takes them 10 hours to read through the whole thing.
97) Use profanity so if their mom is standing behind them she kids them so hard, you can even feel it.
98) Say you did when you really didn't
99) make fun of other sites so your web host banns you.
100) Don't give them a reson to come back

Oops! Yes I missed a number out. (I nicked off school the day we were learning the 90's.)

101) Don't listen to your visitors good suggestions that would help improve their service to you and other members.

102) Crash the browser in the middle of a credit card transaction so you have no choice but to phone them. Could have done that in the first place!

103) Use IE transistions that freeze your browser while the next page fades in from a circle in the middle of the screen. (of course it would look better if the graphics had loaded on the second page before fading to it, but that would slow the page download down again)

Love this thread!

104) Use a left hand navigation frame, and preferably another one across the top of the screen as well. Now you are really in business...

104a) For anyone fool enough to use 800x600, there will be about 6 lines of content visible (if they scroll to the end of each one in turn - remember only devoted, hard-working visitors are welcome)

104b) Creative linking... it goes without saying that you should ensure all external links open inside the frame. Try to link to as many sites as possible that use the same fantastic frame structure, nestling happily inside yours, leaving a really cute postage-stamp-sized piece of screen for text.

104c) Advanced creative linking: ensure that a random selection of the navigation links in that narrow (non-resizable) LH frame open in the same frame...

105) Visitors have dangerous ideas. They might want to (hsst!) navigate for themselves, thus breaking the flow of your wonderful copywriting.

Prevent this by writing long pages of BLATANT HYPE in a blend of bold, bright colours, etc. (Do not mention your price.) End your page with just half a sentence, so that they'll want to...
*CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE NEXT PAGE*

(Or maybe go straight back to the search engine. But then they weren't qualified prospects, were they?)

The best way to irritate your visitors - at the time of opening any page of your website automatically fire some popup windows with some forms to register, with some banner, with some survey details etc...

Use huge bold type to tell your visitors to "SEARCH FOR THE HIDDEN LINK TO FILL OUT THE FORM TO BE ELIGABLE FOR OUR FREE GIVE-AWAY!"

Thats 1) find the hidden link 2) fill out the form 3) win the contest 4) collect the prize. Mind you, this 'contest' has no set time frame; it's a never-ending contest. Hence, no winners!

Yeah, visitors really love hunting for your 1x1 pixel hidden link. You don't think they go to your site looking for actual information, much less to actually buy stuff!

Have floating Java Banners that gently come to rest in the middle of the page, right on top of any text your visitor might wish to read

..embed audio in your newsletters so it messes up the people who just might happen to be listening to MP3's.

This I thought was great to eliminate visitors. Have your page only viewable by Internet Explorer, then have a close window at the bottom of the page, click, your site is gone.

106 Make your navigation so that when the user clicks on a link it moves the navigation to different parts of the same page while your 12 meg image is downloading

107. Force visitors to visit 3 topsites and vote for you before entering

108. Sign totally off topic guestbooks with your URL to increase your linkpopularity.

109. Even better, use a bit of Javascript in your postings that pop-up a new window with a nice ad for your website.

110. Wine about being banned (wonder why )from Searchengine's in newsgroups using your signature with 5 links to your websites again.

And make sure your email address is mistyped and does not work.

At the top of your page WARN visitors that they have a virus. This will make them close all fifteen pages and shut down four applications they had open doing some frivolous research or other. Then after they have spent four hours downloading the latest virus.dat file and doing a full system scan of all files on a 20Gig hard drive with seven partitions, they will come back to your page to see what is going on. When they return have some obscure and well disguised text link to another page that won't tell them, but will allow them to figure out that you really meant that they had some software installed that you just don't like. Here's the page. ps. I don't like it either, and despite my griping I'm glad to find out about it. Sam Tyler

RE: Popups
Windows tip: alt-F4 will kill popups before they can even load the code for the next popup. Careful though, it will kill any open window. Luck, SamT

I can't believe this bothers me only, but...
--Make sure you have many very large graphics that take long to appear plus have nothing to do with the WebSite.

Use required ActiveX (Java/Flash) in your checkout process ... but be sure that the fill-in forms still appear for people who have it turned off (like me). That way, when they type in all their info and finally checkout, it doesn't work after all.

I am definatley guilty of some of these things *hangs head in shame*
but you forgot a basic one that i do inately:
make sure that your html code displays on your browser properly but has so many errors on it you will never be found on ANY search engine :P

anyone want to see my first commercial site to laugh at my ineptitute can veiw it at
http://alternative-sports.com/

i promis to do something about the music

Hiya damian44 welcome to the forums. Glad you enjoyed our little thread and thanks for bumping it up. It's a golden oldie and there is so much real information in it

And yup your example was suitably annoying! Well done

I popped in here earlier to get the link for a new webmaster and was pleased to see the thread is still alive

Right now I'm checking out some program submissions for my freeware site and this 'gem' was among them!! You want to build an irritating site? This guy's got it down to a fine art http://www.AminSpecial.cjb.net/

Become an affiliate for a piece of software (Gator is a good example of this). When people attempt to visit your site they will automatically be asked if they give permission to download the software. Those who hit yes by accident will love you even more when they spend a few minutes having to remove the program from their hard drive. To make it more interesting put it on every page. You're sure to get someone to download this program.

try providing "netzany" to people this is very anoying and hard to remove software

80) - Make sure and put tons of animated gifs on all of your pages! People hate it when theres so much stuff moving around and distracting them (PERFECT!)

[ad deleted]

[Note: This message has been edited by Janet Berg]

81) Attatch Viruses to all downloads on your site, those worthless users (the ones that are worth keeping will have a good enough AntiVirus program to detect and block the infiltrating virus... these are the only visitors worth bothering with!).

82) Place your navigation in random places from page to page.

83) Make users go into a section of your site, then have to come back up to the home page to access the next section due to sub-standard navigation. They are the dedicated users you want!

84) Automatically pick up the users email address then use it for marketing purposes via an non-unsubscribable newsletter! Why stop there - sell the emails to other companies to spam your annoying visitors with too!

85) Make every sentance and bit of text a link to somewhere in your site. This is utter GENIUS people will get so confused as to what to click on, they won't know where they are or how they got there. See msn.com

86) Make all the alt texts in images consist of about 50 highly irrelevant keywords. To be as annoying as you can layout should look like: keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, keyword4, keyword5, keyword6, keyword7... etc. You could even repeat them if you can't think of any more.

People and Search Engines will absolutely love you for it. Expect to see many return visits from the visually impaired!

DeeZine - "This guy's got it down to a fine art"

Yep that stinks its Aminos 'special' design that does it you know

They don't do it now but for a long time an airline made you sign up for their frequent flyer program and get a membership number BEFORE you could view the fares on their website. You would, go to fares, enter all your information and then at the end, find out you will receive a card in the mail and then you can come back and view the fares.

Otherwise you had to call and be put on hold for an hour and ask for the fares. Am I allowed to say which airline? Probably not, luckily they changed it this year.

87) Watch this thread in horror as i need to make all these changes.
[link snipped should be in your profile]

[ Message was edited by: xelA 03/21/2003 01:01 pm ]

Your #85 nickn0783 is right on the mark! If there's a mistake to make on a website nobody does it like microsloppy

88) People have been known to bookmark a page and try to return to it, sometimes years later. To ensure that links break as quickly as possible do what Microsloppy does... Keep moving your site content around especially if you have downloads. Always use the version number in the file name and the page title. Whenever you think a couple of pages aren't in the right place navigationally, add another domain or sub-domain for them!
Combine this with #85 and you'll have the most confusing site on the entire Internet!

Lol, pressed the wrong damn button.

Damn I hate when I do that......

Anyways, as I was saying, ty to Dee for showing this place to me, given me more than a few giggles.

And...is my site really that annoying?

I believe more webmasters need to use the "uncloseable pop-up windows" advertising gimmick. I don't know about anyone else but..... I get this warm fussy feeling when I get to use the (CTL + ALT + DEL) function! Just to close that much wanted advertisement.

cmhc - try 'Alt + F4' its much quicker

Popped In Crashed Out - Yeah, sorry bud, but your site has some very annoying features at the moment. It makes it kinda hard to read.

I got another one...

90) Those new flash adverts that come up within the same browser but hover over the website. You cant close it 'till it's have finished (even though you've already seen it several times that day) and it ALWAYS seems to hover right over the freakin link that you want to click on.

I mean though, they are great! What commical mastermind thought of that? I want to give him/her a nice BIG pat on the back [with a sledge hammer!]

Lololololol Dee

I'll see what I can do about the site (although I would prefer suggestions, lol).

Btw, I've thought of something annoying aswell......

Those damn so called "free" sites that require you to enter everything about yourself (well, everything except your DNA type) before you can use any of the services (see Breathe.com's "free sms service").

Btw dood, I can lend you my sledge hammer if you like?, on the condition that I can watch.

One other thing that the no right click function prevents people from doing is that you can't right click and create a chortcut to your desktop for their site so you can find it easy in the future. After I haven't cleared out my Bookmarks or Favorites list for a while, sometimes if I really like a site I will just right click and create a short cut to my desktop so I can later find the site and then add to my bookmarks later when there is room for it. Ive for so many things on my favorites right now that if I added anything else I'd never be able to find it. But I do have the no right click code on my site right now... and am thinking of taking them all off the pages.

Claudia