Website Tips

These are various helpful guidelines for webmasters. Following them will give you an easier time winning my awards.

Content Tips

  • Spelling and grammar are important - don't write in all caps, don't use chatspeak, and if you're not sure about the spelling of a word, look it up before using it. Proofread all your sections after making them. If your spelling is generally nothing to be impressed about, try typing your content out in Microsoft Word or another program with an integrated spellchecker, checking Pokémon names in my Gotta Spell 'Em All section, and then copying and pasting it into your HTML editor.
  • Before putting cheats, etc. on your site, test them yourself or at least make sure you have a very good reason to believe they will work. It's always better to be safe than sorry.
  • Test your links and pictures to see if they work after inserting them into a section. When I fail to do that, I almost always turn out to have mistyped something.
  • Don't fill your site with pages that say "coming soon!" or "under construction". Don't make huge menus with fifty links if only ten of them actually work. If you really want everybody to know what sections you're planning on making, at least don't make them links yet.
  • Be original - if your favorite website has some brilliant section, it will not be nearly as brilliant when you put it on yours too. Generally, if you see something really cool and original on a website, you should rather be going "Aw, I wish I had thought of that" than "Ooh, that's cool, I'm going to make something like that too!" Think of something nobody has ever done before, and people will have more of a reason to visit your website rather than somebody else's.
  • Don't open your site until you actually have something of substance on it. If you do decide to open it when there's nothing on it anyway, don't advertise it or tell everybody to visit it until you have something on it. Otherwise you're wasting people's time. "Something of substance" would be some interesting and/or useful content.

Site Management Tips

  • Update frequently - actually, read over all your sections once in a while, just to see if there is anything outdated or incorrect still there.
  • If you are making a website, be serious about it. Owning a website that you close a couple of months later is not cool. Be sure that you will be interested in both Pokémon and your website for a long, long time if you want to make one.
  • Learn HTML. 'Easy' site builders won't get you far at all, period. If you absolutely must you can start out with one, but you'll have to learn HTML sooner or later.

Website Annoyances

  • Do not use a splash page if there is no point in having one. There are really only two points to splash pages: a) being named for example index.htm if that's what your starting page must be named even though your real main page has another extension; and b) containing things such as browser requirements, copyrights, styleswitchers or basic information about the website's theme that people should see before entering your site. (Then I mean stuff like "THIS WEBSITE CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT AND IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 YOU SHOULD LEAVE IMMEDIATELY" or "This is an art gallery, you must absolutely not use anything you find in it in any way and by entering you agree that you are aware of this and will face the consequences", not "Look, this site works in every browser! :o") If you don't seriously need one, then don't have one. Before you point it out, yes, I do have a splash page that's not terribly necessary, but it gives people a chance to select their style immediately instead of perhaps never noticing that the site has a style switcher at all, and you only see it the first time you come here and haven't set a style cookie unless you explicitly click it on the menu. The main reason splash pages get annoying is that people have to see them again and again every time they enter your site when they just want to get straight to the main page to see if you've updated. Additionally, my splash page generally tries to at least amuse the visitor somewhat and is an excuse for me to draw my mascots for hit milestones. So there.
  • Have stylistic consistency within your sections - if you use one format for your R/B/Y cheats page, don't use a completely different format for your G/S/C cheats page. Actually, if you for example use an image as a header in one section, use an image as a header in them all, whether they're the R/B/Y cheats or the FAQ. All of your site should feel like a part of one whole.
  • If one of your sections has a long name that doesn't fit into your menu, do not abbreviate it to fit it unless the abbreviation is an official or very common one. This especially applies if you have a "Do Not Click Here" page - it completely defeats the purpose if all the visitor sees is "DNCH", since then they'll just click there thinking "Hmm, what does that mean?" They won't have a clue what it means until they're there and probably receiving some of your evil punishment for clicking. This also applies to abbreviations that may be a little more known than that, like "PotW" for Pokémon of the Week. If the actual phrase is spelled out somewhere nearby, such as if it's an abbreviation for the site's name which is (or should be) at the top anyway, or if you have a "Pokémon of the Week" and then below it a "PotW archive" or something, it will be fine since then it's easy to figure it out, but don't make the visitor have to click to have any idea what the section contains. It will be a better idea to think of something shorter that is at least slightly descriptive for what the section is - for a "Pokémon of the Week", you could for example make the link say "Featured Pokémon" or, if you need it even shorter, "Featured PKMN".
  • Don't get DynamicDrive syndrome! What is DynamicDrive syndrome, you ask? Well, it's when a newbie webmaster comes across DynamicDrive, Javascript Source or another similar website, thinks "WOOOOOW, that's so cool!" about a few scripts, and sticks them all on his/her website because they're cool. The thing is, yes, they are cool, but they get in the way and slow down the page (may even crash the browser) and are just generally not necessary. Yes, the cursor-trailing clock is a VERY neat-looking script, but I don't come to your site to see a cursor-trailing clock. This also applies to anything that falls down or floats up your page such as balloons or snowflakes, and anything that follows the mouse around or spreads out from it, be it bubbles, hearts or Pokéballs.
  • Do not use background music. You can have it as an optional thing if you really must, but do not make it blast out from the visitor's speakers without warning when they come to your site.
  • Really, generally don't put anything unwanted and unnecessary on your site, be it music, scripts, or random animated gifs from Pokémonaholic splattered all over the page. Every image on your site should have a clear purpose (excluding those that are in the layout for decoration).
  • Don't refer to your site as the "number one" anything or "THE BEST" anything. Chances are it's not the best whatever, and even if it is, it's egotistical and rather lame to refer to it as such. Advertise your site as what it is, not what you want it to be.
  • Use pleasant colors - don't use overly bright ones or have too little or too much contrast between text and background.
  • Any games on your site, even a "Do Not Click Here" or other patience test of some sort, are there to be entertaining. Sure, my Marquee of Doom goes on about how much it's torturing you, but when it comes right down to it, it is text that you can read and at least somewhat amuse yourself by, with the addition that if it's getting too boring for you, you can just give up and exit. I usually click "Do Not Click Here" links because some webmasters have actually made them entertaining and amusing as they should be. However, once you have an array of alerts that say the same word a hundred times in a row, or if you decide, once you can't think of anything else to add to what you were writing, that you're just going to copy and paste what you already have five times - then it's no longer entertaining. It's annoying and dumb, and the only thing the visitor can do to get out of your boring, unfunny prank is to end task their browser. That is NOT a good thing, period. There are two types of annoyances: there are things that are annoying in an amusing way, and there are things that are just plain annoying. You're fine with the first type, but the second spells doom for your site. You do not want to get your visitor just plain annoyed.
  • Do not lie about the content of a section. This includes anything from a simple "Complete Pokédex" link leading to a page with extremely basic information on Bulbasaur to linking to an "award" that takes you to a Do Not Click Here-esque torture page. When the link says "Do Not Click Here", you have an excuse to give your visitors a bit of pain. When the link says "award", you don't, and will simply annoy the visitor. See above.

Titles

  • Every single "(The) Poké(mon) ____" title you might have thought of is taken, guaranteed.
  • Chances are most "[insert random Pokémon here]('s) [insert location here]" (e.g. "Latias Nest", "Zubat Cave", "Charizard's Lair", "Eevee's Hideout") are taken, too. It might be a good idea to do a Google search of the title you're considering (with quotation marks around it) if you don't want to get your site confused with an already established one; even then, however, these titles do tend to get a little tiresome after you've seen the umpteenth "Articuno's Cave".
  • Don't call your site something like "EnteiWorld.net" or anything else with a domain extension if you are not the owner of that domain. No, not if you intend to own it sometime, either. If you have the domain and the site is known by that name (like "Serebii.net") you can start using that if you really have to, but I still don't recommend it for most cases.

Page last modified April 07 2008 at 00:14 GMT

I hereby promise to all of my visitors that my site should only contain accurate, up-to-date information. For example, all cheats on this site have been personally tested by me. All information you will find here will therefore be true, unless I a) clearly state that said information is false, b) do not know the truth, or c) did not know it at the time of writing said information, and have not updated the section since. If you spot cases of b) or c), please report them via this form and they will be fixed as soon as possible.

Pokémon, Pikachu and all other Pokémon characters are © 1995-2008 Nintendo, GAME FREAK and Creatures. Inc. This website is purely the work of a fan.
All layouts, non-official graphics and content © 2002-2008 Butterfree/Dragonfree/antialiasis unless otherwise stated.