All hosts seem to look exactly the same?


This is what depresses me more than ever - when the immature people judge a book by it's cover. This shows that they are not only immature, and most likely children themselves, but also very narrow minded.

I myself, I can run a business perfectly - I can start a business up now with some capital and have it earning plenty of money within six months. That's me - I'm not a designer, I'm not a dancer, I'm not a singer, I'm a businessman because I have the mind to be one. No matter the business, no matter the product, I'll be able to sell it and sell it well with a nice amount of capital and have that company turning in a nice profit. So what if I cannot design a website, does it matter? In actual fact, I personally can design very good websites - however I'm unable to ever do a nice banner. All my sites end up having a very bland banner, since I never learnt how to make a sparkling one and I don't really want to bother either.

There are many places out there whom offer nice templates and full websites which are unique, such as PixelAxis. I'd say Ravio as well, however many are having problems with them at the moment. Although PixelAxis is quite cheap, and their quality seems very very good. There are always people in the world who are great at one thing, while not good at another. Just because Bill Gates apparently isn't a very nice person, doesn't mean he isn't good on computers - since he is!
Just because a baker cannot run the till, doesn't mean he can't bake well. It's simply immature to judge someone by something they cannot do.
I'll take one example: the other night I saw a high up person speaking, I think it was a senator or something, and when he was talking about New Year's Eve - He said New Year's Night. I speak English at a very high level and passed very highly from school - and I'm pretty sure someone high up in power like he was would need to have a pretty high level in English as well, however proper true English is not New Year's Night - Eve means the night before, while New Year's Night means the evening of New Year.
If you don't quite understand I'll put it better: New Year's Eve is the night before New Year. New Year's Night is the night of New Year. Those two aren't quite the same. Get it?

He probably is (presumption) very good in what he does, whatever he does, however he doesn't speak English to an extent of what you'd expect - or at least what I'd expect from someone high up.


So you should never judge a person, a web host, a company, or anyone or even anything by what it does not do properly or cannot do.
 
Anjay.. Thought I see the point of 99% of what you say, if you don't judge a host by what it doesn't/can't do well.. isn't it possible you (as a customer) would be letting quite a lot slide?

-Ryan
 

That depends, really.

It depends what you don't judge the host on. As a customer, I'd judge a host on their client support, on their network reliability and stability, their server performance and reliability and the support staff politeness and professionalism. However, as a customer I'd never judge a host on their design, on the fact they may not offer friendly personalised replies, and many other things.

Obviously each person is different, but personally, if I were a customer, I'd really only judge on network and server reliability and stability and price - by price I mean I'd make sure it's not too cheap. For example, some places offer tier-1 multihomed bandwidth charge $30 for 6gb bandwidth, I may think that's a bit over the top while others don't, however I think $20 is fine for 6gb bandwidth on that sort of bandwidth with very bad support.

It really depends on each person. My post was really trying to put across the point of not judging a host on their design, and other silly things like that.
 
I use templates and I use original design. Which ever suites my mood. Of course I want the site to be eye appealing. Remember "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder". Some think a template looks more professional while thinking you only designed the site because you were too cheap to buy a template. It goes either way. The main concern should be service and support.
 
Sadly, these hosts are trying to get a template to stand out from the competition. But when they take the shortcut to looking unique, they end up looking the same. I think that was the point the original poster was trying to make. I don't believe he was slighting the quality of their service.
 
I know I'm late to jump into this thread, but I'll add my two cents anyway...

I have no problem with a host using a template, because as was stated before, design does not affect quality of service, although the first impression on the user will often impact their decision. If the site looks poorly maintained and out of date, its almost a sure bet that you won't get their business. The only thing that tends to bug me about template hosts is when they don't take the time to customize everything and leave things like "Insert company description here". This to me is usually a sure sign that they started yesterday. Blue has pointed instances like this out many times. Template or not, we all need to make sure that whats on our site is up to date and will allow the visitor to navigate smoothly, without annoying them. I have taken a few courses in web design and internet media, and a study was done about an average visitors activity on a given website. If the site had too much text, he left. Face it, we're all lazy, we don't want to read 20 pages worth of useless garbage. And if it takes too long to load, we leave within 7 seconds. Many people don't like sounds and movies because they are 1 annoying and 2, depending on connection can take forever to download. To sum this up, I think that the site itself leaves an important impression on the visitor, many of which take that into account when making their purchase decision.
 
My company TheSitePeople.com was quite lucky in a sense that both of the owners (Myself and Mason Galindo) are fully fledged website and graphic designers. If this wasn't the case I'm sure we would have hired somebody to do the job.

To be perfectly honest I hate seeing hosts use default or generic TM templates, it just ruins the companies integrity!
 
I dont mind the use of templates but i dont like the idea of visting 3-4 sites that look exactly the same!

if the people who brought the overly graphicaly "stuffed" templates were to sit there and take say 30 mins to modify the template bang they have a nice unique layout and design that may look like a template but it will show the host likes to take pride in what he works on.
 
I agree with you Stewart. It wouldn't take much to modify a template and make it a bit different. I really don't get it why people buy a template and use it as it is.
 
Its lazyness... i know that when ever i buy a template the first 2 thinks i do is cut out most of the images and the turn the design into a CSS and XHTML 1.1 compliant design i know its a bit of work but it shows that i take pride in the design/layout.
 
I disagree with "all host's look the same".

Whilst there's a large number of companies using cookie cutter websites - there's also a lot of originality when you start going 'up the ladder' inside each sub-sector of the web hosting industry.

The one thing I hate to see, is the literal template thrown up, with no modification - other than that, no harm, no foul.


Simon
 
mattxclassic said:
This is more of a question as to why this is like this... but it seems every site has the same basic header changed around a little bit. A flash template with a picture of a server that lights run through. Examples: xelanti.com and raine-tech.com. Nothing against these sites, it's just that xelanti support seems really slow, and I am hesitant to trust any host that looks like this now. Could someone explain why this is so? I'm currently hosted under passionhost.com and want to switch to something cheaper with better options, but it seems like everything else would be unreliable.
Click to expand...

Yeah... Lots of web hosts really need to get a little more creative. The generic flashy copycat pages are a bore.
 
I absolutely agree with getting a little creative. And although a company's web design should never be the most important thing in regards to your decision as to whether to go with them or not, if a company slaps up a template they obviously aren't too concerned with their image.. and on the web, image is everything.

I enjoy visiting sites that are unique.. even if they aren't designed by the best of the best, just the fact they tried to put a bit of creativity into their site says a lot..
 
Some companies just go to one and the same tailor :)

Check the list of hosting site designs they have done, then think why they look similar

http://www.ceonex.com/recent/index1.htm

Also as Ceonex are really good in what they do, lot of other hosts copied and modified the ideas and general design concepts from these site, hence there are lots of sites that look similar. It is a common for a webdesigner to hear from a client: "I want my site to look like www.someothersite.com"

But is that BAD, I do not think so. Take a look a at the Automotive industry for example - All new car models have common design lines, don't they :)

Take a look at the Search engines sites, News sites, take a look at any industry and you will be able to find similarities in each product, design or whatever.

It just that a given industry always has some leaders and then all others try to be like them, take ideas, etc.
 
I dont have a problem with template sites generally, but hell, if you want peoples money, you have to put some effort in...its ridiculous!
I mean first of all, if you want a template site, at least pay for it in the first place. There is no point in picking up one of these templates that 10 other websites are using. The next thing is the shear fact that there are websites on the web offering exactly what was on the default template. They never change it! Thats disgusting...there are supposed 'webhosts' in the UK, who are offering hosting, but still have their prices in $US. These are the types of hosts that are merely in it to get your money and its appauling. With so many sits like this one, its surprising there is no authority which can have these hosts shut-down (or at least there domain names blocked). Templates are good for their purpose...of ripping people off!

I wont be so bold as to rid templates altogether though. I use them for 'inspiration'. In other words I take jpeg screenshots of YourCompany.com templates and take bits and pieces out of them. My current business' webiste consists of about three or four templates put together as well as a large amount of my own personal input. I think thats fair and thats what templates should be for.

BTW : To Andrew who said that the third main reason for hosts screwing up was the fact that there was a 14 year old at the reigns :

I think that you are waaay off buddy. Its gotta be one pretty smart kid to be able to do something of that callibre. I think you are strictly generalising there and probably have little proof to back up your claim. I used to head up an IT center in a Private school a few years back and had one kid who came through school, took my job and now heads up a continent-wide Security Company of his own. He's gonna retire at like 21 and it was because of initiatives like that which you are putting down. There are some pretty smart kids out there who probably know more than half of these idiots who are merely in it to rip you off for your money. ****, 14y/o's dont even know how to use money! They are probably just in it to see how everything works and although I dont ask you to support them, just dont screw them over all the time.
I'm just asking you nicely to think about what you say.
That guy's website is, www.4dds.co.za
 
****, 14y/o's dont even know how to use money!
Click to expand...

I know where you were trying to go with that, but....

Go to your local mall, and give a 14 yo $20....I guarantee they'll know what to do with it. They may not do anything "useful" with it, but that's the point.

In reality most teenagers don't know how to use money........properly. None-the-less, they know how to use it for what THEY want. Which is why these 14yo kids are getting into this. They have this fanatical idea that they'll get rich....then go buy all the GI Joes they can handle. ;)
 
Ok, I rest my case...but I dont think you guys should judge some little kiddie, simply on the fact that they dont have money skills...There are some kids out there that probably know more about PC, hosting and server admin than any of us...Some of you might disagree, but thats my opinion.
~Equinox

(Sorry about the language there! Wont happen again..)
 
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