Ten Top Sites Compared - Page 3

AOL: Welcome to AOL Anywhere Yahoo: Yahoo! MSN: Welcome to MSN.com Microsoft: Welcome to the Microsoft Corporate Website eBay: eBay - The World's Online Marketplace Amazon: Amazon.com - Earth's Biggest Selection Lycos: Lycos About: About - The Human Internet Google: Google Disney: Disney.com - Where the Magic Lives Online!

Home Page Title

Page titles show at the top of the browser screen and in Favorites/Bookmarks, but they also show in the taskbar at the bottom of a Windows OS screen, where they're likely to be joined by so many other window icons. If they start 'Welcome to', as three of the sites do on our list, they may become so cramped they only show "Wel…". Politeness over purpose, perhaps?

The remaining seven use the site name as the first word of the title, giving it the best chance of showing up when the taskbar icons become very small.

AOL: yes Yahoo: yes MSN: yes Microsoft: yes eBay: yes Amazon: yes Lycos: yes About: yes Google: yes (very little) Disney: yes

Client-side JavaScript

Everybody is using JavaScript, and often huge amounts of it. Some of us may have thought that client-side JavaScript was declining in popularity, in response to users disabling it to prevent pop- up windows. Wrong!

AOL: internal Yahoo: no MSN: external, an enormous .ashx file (50k) Microsoft: external .css file eBay: no Amazon: internal Lycos: external .css file About: external .css file, big at 9k Google: internal Disney: no

CSS

Not much agreement here. Three sites don't use CSS (two of these don't have much text), three use stylesheet code within the main page, three use external .css files, and MSN goes its own way with an enormous .ashx sylesheet file. This file type appears to have something to do with the Microsoft .NET initiative.

If there is a consensus, it's that the majority do use CSS in some form or another.

AOL: 585 Yahoo: about 700, but only a few bits lost on a 640 screen MSN: 768, but reduces to fit perfectly at 640 Microsoft: 100% top and bottom, 621 for the main area eBay: 600 Amazon: 100%, works fine at 640 Lycos: 100%, but minimum width about 760 About: 654 Google: 700 at 800, but adjusts down to 640 and even 500 Disney: 640 (viewed in an 800 pixel width window, with notes for a 640 window)

Page Width (pixels)

This is where it all gets messy. Sometimes widths aren't exactly clear in the HTML code, and may be set by a horizontal sequence of graphics, or even text. In some cases we had to revert to assessing widths on screen.

The general result is that most sites can deal perfectly well with an 800 pixel width screen, and the vast majority will go down to 640 pixels without much of a problem. The exception is Lycos, which really needs 800. Yahoo, About and Disney all suffer a few minor trimmings at 640, mainly due to the intrusion of a vertical scroll bar.

It's also interesting to note that four of the sites don't attempt to fill the space offered by an 800 pixel window, and stick with pretty much the same layout they offer at 640 pixels.

Ten Top Sites Compared - Page 2
Ten Top Sites Compared
Ten Top Sites Compared - Page 4