VC&G | >> You Know It's an Old Website If...

November 23rd, 2011 by Benj Edwards

Just a little while ago on Twitter, I started spouting out some one liners, Jeff Foxworthy style, about how you know if a website is old. I love coming across old websites, so it's fun to spit these out.

I can't guarantee that they're funny, but I think they're at least amusing. People liked them enough that I decided to post my lines here and ask you guys to continue the list. I may add more to it over time.

You know it's an old website if...
...every image on the site rotates.

You know it's an old website if...
...they refer to AltaVista in the present tense.

You know it's an old website if...
...you found it through a web ring.

You know it's an old website if...
...it says "Best viewed in IBM WebExplorer."

You know it's an old website if...
...your browser complains that there's no MIDI plug-in installed.

You know it's an old website if...
...it forces you to enter the site through a splash page.

You know it's an old website if...
...it asks you not to hotlink the GIF images.

You know it's an old website if...
...every single link on the page '404s.

You know it's an old website if...
...the owner claims it's "under construction."

You know it's an old website if...
...it brags about having 1,000 hits.

Now it's your turn. Add your one-liners in the comments below.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Computer History, Humor, Internet History, Technology Commentary, Vintage Computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

50 Responses to "You Know It's an Old Website If..."

Nacho Says:
November 23rd, 2011 at 8:40 pm
...it uses frames.

Bonus points if you can see the divisions.
CPBelt Says:
November 23rd, 2011 at 8:46 pm
...it says "best viewed in 800x600."

...it asks you to bookmark the site.
Dementropy Says:
November 23rd, 2011 at 8:48 pm
...you see a Netscape logo like it's a professional badge of honor.

...it cites usenet links as resources.

...there's a heavy usage of blink tags and rainbow gradient lines to separate text as examples of superior page design.
technotreegrass Says:
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:21 pm
...it asks you to sign the guestbook.
Jon Says:
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:52 pm
... scrolling marquee.
SirPaul Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 12:03 am
...it looks PERFECT on Internet Explorer 3.0.
aliennerd Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 4:18 am
... there's a hit counter that looks like a car mileage counter.

... there are animated GIF's plastered everywhere.

... barely legible, garish text on a background that looks like a 1970's curtain.
Geoff V. Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 7:38 am
... you see

... it has any copy in Comic Sans.

... it boasts "now listed in Lycos."
Ronald E. Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 9:15 am
... it doesn't show any link to social media

... the HTML source mentions "generated with HotDog"

... the website builder has had an excellent time figuring out the features of the tag

... it states that you can reach the website owner through an IRC channel

... it's loaded with animated .gif images
Zoyous Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
...it has a button link to download Macromedia Flash.
Tandyman100 Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
"aEUR| it states that you can reach the website owner through an IRC channel"

Oy, my site has that

As a joke, I actually went and purposely tried to make the ugliest website I could. Animated gif background, animated gif buttons, text that is almost identical to the background color, and an animated banner on the top.

Oh, and of course, "welcome to my web-site"
BDD Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
... if it has a rotating yellow "Under Construction" sign, signaling that the site will always be "under construction"...

... there's a link to a font that says "download this font to view the site as it should look"...

... there are myriad "Download NOW!" badges...
BDD Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
The last one was supposed to be "Download *insert browser here* NOW!" Guess I shouldn't have used > or
Ariella Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
Green, red, yellow, blue, and white text are used on a starfield background image.

There's a badge that says, "Made on a Mac".

Every button has a red arrow pointing to it.

There are centered links in their own paragraph labelled "Click here".

The contact-us submission form has "/cgi-bin/" in its URL.

The "last updated xxxx-xx-xx" text hasn't been changed since 1995.
s1500 Says:
November 24th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
..it has a "top 10% of all websites" or whatever that award was with the eye.
Al.H Says:
November 25th, 2011 at 1:54 am
...if it doesn't use CSS or has a basic CSS layout.
idisjunction Says:
November 25th, 2011 at 3:02 am
...it links to a gopher server.
Ant Says:
November 25th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Hey, I still use some of those. [grin]
Mxx Says:
November 25th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
... if it has index.php in its url.
PS3D Says:
November 25th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
...your eyes start burning from the garish text colors and background.

...EVERYTHING is in Times New Roman.

...it loads ultra-fast (hey, there's one plus)

...the copyright date is in the 1990s.

Here's one I featured on my blog recently: it has a LOT of things wrong with it in terms of old website design. See how many you can count. http://www.wtv-zone.com/dpjohnson/homepage/index.html
jim Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 12:37 am
...it's one I made.
Alex Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 1:16 am
... its a templatemonster.com template.
Andrew Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 2:53 am
Has a link to the gopher site.

Mentions Mosaic.

Uses "ISINDEX" instead of a form.

Explains that "WWW" means "World Wide Web" and describes what hyperlinks are... on the main page.
idisjunction Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 6:33 am
@PS3D

I counted about 9 things I would change, not including repeat items (such as each broken offsite image). Then again i took a class my junior year of high school that used FrontPage, so what do I know?
tgroff Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 11:54 am
... still uses .pl scripts from Matt's Script Archive - http://www.scriptarchive.org
James M Singleton Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
I had to laugh because my website is always under construction.
Moondog Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
@ James: Nothing is ever finished. Only abandoned. You're just being honest. Projects would never be released if perfection was the goal.

You know it's an old website ifaEUR|

it says "Best viewed with Mosiac or Arachne."
Mark Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
...it has an animated gif of a burning torch.
Teksonik Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
It has the word "Vintage" in the title..
Knight Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Has any form of ASCII art on the page....

Has a link to a MSN chat room....

Has a red/green flashing .gif anywhere on the site....

Is considered "good" code to have gotten its table usage down to 7 or 8 nested tables.....

Uses spacers....
SirPaul Says:
November 26th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
...Two words: BLINK TAGS.
BoraxMan Says:
November 27th, 2011 at 4:15 am
....its url starts with http://www.geocities.com

....has animated sprites from Doom

....has a 16 colour image of the web sites author
idisjunction Says:
November 27th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Isn't Geocities closed?
woniak Says:
November 27th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
If it says "Best Viewed in the newest version of NCSA Mosaic (Lynx users won't see the picture)!" or "Breaking news: HTML 1.1 compliant"
woniak Says:
November 27th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
AltaVista wasn't around until many years after the first websites existed. AskJeeves, WebCrawler and Lycos predated AltaVista by a long shot.

@BoraxMan: its URL would have to start with http:// because older browsers required the user to specify the protocol, which IS, after all, an essential component of any URL.
Torch Wood Says:
November 27th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
You know a site is old when...

* it recommends using a modern browser like Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape.
* Still uses frames
* It has a badly exposed e-mail address.
* The browser detection says "Your version of Internet Explorer 9 is not compatible with this site. Download the latest version from Microsoft"
BDD Says:
November 28th, 2011 at 6:49 am
... it has scrolling text in the status and/or title bar of the browser...

... the background is either garish in color or that flat gray with embossed tiled images...
Donn Says:
November 28th, 2011 at 11:33 am
...it asks you to install Shockwave, so you can punch the monkey.
BDD Says:
December 1st, 2011 at 3:30 pm
One more:

... it has a link to a channel that can be installed on your Windows 98 desktop, so that live "push" updates can be done to keep the channel up to date.

Ugh. Remember the Windows 98 desktop-as-webpage thing? Talk about a resource hog, and those channel were absolutely worthless even when they *did* work...
Terry Wilkinson Says:
December 1st, 2011 at 3:57 pm
......it advertises Lotus 1-2-3....
Florian Says:
December 14th, 2011 at 7:59 am
Hows about donA't posting your thinking
instead of Posting

WEBSITE ADRESSES (oldstyle)
deegeejay Says:
December 22nd, 2011 at 11:43 am
. . . it is live (I'm about to upload the new one and then start again).
Melanie Gretchen Says:
December 23rd, 2011 at 9:58 am
if you get a 404 error when you click on a link posted on that website.
David Spalding Says:
March 28th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
The site proudly says at the bottom "Coded in Notepad" or "Code in BBEdit" or "Made on a Mac."

Or you see one of these: http://www.korova.com/images/icons/netscape.gif
Schartz Rehan Says:
August 4th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
After a whole laughing, and reading all the above opinions I can see its an old website.
Terrible Juan Says:
September 20th, 2012 at 9:55 am
* The webpage has an gif icon of a mailbox to email the webmaster

* "Best viewed in 256 colors"
Invader Says:
February 9th, 2013 at 8:21 am
... when it touts Netscape For OS/2 as "NEW!"
... when its written almost COMPLETELY IN CAPSLOCK.
... when the flashing text isn't a image.
... when it advertises a contest from the early 90s

oh and i found one of the oldest webpages i've ever seen, EVER here is the hypertext hyperlink to this site on the world wide web.
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~skwee39/explore.html
Invader Says:
February 9th, 2013 at 8:35 am
... when it plays Diablo music upon entry
... when the visit counter is a broken image file
... when its last entry is from 1997
... when its guest book -is- WAS on htmlgear.lycos.com
... when most of its banners and images are broken
... when it uses the now defunct "REPEAT=TRUE" function of QuickTime
... when it pulls nearly ALL the tropes listed above and still manages to be epic

Best old site I've seen yet... (last version pre-Geocity Crisis)
http://www.reocities.com/timessquare/arcade/6671/
carmen Says:
June 3rd, 2016 at 8:11 am
... if the graphics are terrible
... if it gives you a virus
TheDogOfChaos Says:
December 19th, 2023 at 2:59 pm
...it still uses java applets, marquees, or blinks

...the background is just a random photo that they took 10 years ago that does not look good if tiled, but the person tiled it anyway

...it uses those 3D gifs that were cool & popular many years ago

...it advertises hardware/software that is heavily underpowered nowadays

this is probably necroposting, but i don't care

You Know It's an Old Website If...

50 Responses to "You Know It's an Old Website If..."

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