Blog for The Well Designed URLs Initiative

Something that would be fun would be to see a list of the top 10 worst designed URLs on the web, a.k.a. URLs that Suck! You know the type, you cringe when you see ‘em, especially if you frequently use their site.

So I’m calling on you to help in this quest. If you see a really bad URL, either place a comment on this page, or better yet, tag it with the following on del.icio.us:

urls-that-suck

If you want to tag a specific URL, please do that. But if you want to indicate the entire site’s URLs suck then tag their home page as well! Tag as many of a site’s different types of URLs that suck , but be fair to the site and only tag one of each type as we don’t want to overrepresent the suckiness of a site’s URLs.

And what’s more, tell your friends about it. It’d be great to get an army of URLians to keep an eye out for those really horrific URLs. Together we can shine a light on these abominations and give their owners a reason to bow their head in shame! ;-)

As soon as I get a statistically significant sampling[1] of sucky URLs, I’ll announce my pick for the Top 10 “URLs that Suck” Awards; probably at the end of 2007, but maybe sooner. I’ll also honor the top ten contributors and as well showcase anything or anyone that’s a standout for any reason. And if anyone is so inclined, talk to me about sponsoring these awards; you know you wanna!

If you are onboard for this, please leave a comment letting us know you plan to be on the lookout. And to kickstart this, I will nominate the very first site that has some truly awful URLs that Suck!:

Amazon.com

P.S. And if they are any excellent graphic designers out there who would like to help out with the cause, how about designing some badges that bloggers could post on their website linking to this post with a catchy slogan, something like “Help Stamp Out URLs that Suck!” or “Expose Sucky URLs”, or better; you get the idea!

1. What is a “statistically significant sampling?” I don’t know yet, but I’ll know it when I see it. ;-)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under URLs that Suck, Call to Action, Everyone, Tagging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.