Beware of Using Free Web Templates

I've checked out several sites that offer free web templates and most of them contain the following design flaws that will cripple your website.

* Navigation in Javascript (search engine's can't read text in Javascript so they won't see the links to your inner pages).
* No Doc Type (which tells the browser what kind of Code the site is designed in, HTML, XHTML, etc.).
* No Character set (tells the browser what kind of language to expect- english, etc.
* Images in menu buttons use numbers instead of keywords affecting keyword ranking.
* They put their own business name in image alt tags so YOUR site will rank for their business name.
* File names are all relative (index.html) which causes a duplicate content penalty in search engines.
* Code bloat due to deprecated code and not fully utilizing CSS.
* Nested tables causing indexing problems.
* Not tested in all browsers.
* Inadequate instruction.

They ALL require a link back to their web site as the designer, so the template isn't really free becaue you are providing them a free link. You can't ever remove it either, unless you do a complete redesign, because you never paid for it.

Lori Eldridge
Lori's Web Design
Copyright 6-6-08
All Rights Reserved