New Design

05.07.07

if you see any Bugs lets me know… the new design is loaded with some in house plugins, like the shout box just above the comments on the Homepage,

For reference the shout box is going to where I promote my products, or websites I like , and can leave there for a month or so.

I have dumped the Archive system for better Categories, and used a few other plugins, Once the site settles down and gets reindex then I will list want I did, for better or worse.. I’m know in the Hands of the search engines….

1,890 pages in Google
5,654 pages Yahoo
3,954 pages in Live

My Blog Stats

There are currently 440 posts and 3,175 comments, contained within 23 categories.

DaveN

56 Comments

  • 1

    oops for DazzlinDonna is it Dark enough now :)
    DaveN

    DaveN

    5th July 2007 @ 17:59

  • 2

    Liking the new look, Dave. I have a question to ask, though. Why are you wearing a pair of red underpants on your head?

    Mike
    http://www.twentysteps.com

    5th July 2007 @ 18:31

  • 3

    For a supposedly hacked blog you’re blog looks pretty cool to me Dave ;=)
    Nice Design for sure!

    Edwin

    5th July 2007 @ 18:56

  • 4

    Ask Tim Mayer, he knows why ;)
    DaveN

    DaveN

    5th July 2007 @ 18:56

  • 5

    Funny, this whole time I’ve been thinking that what the web was really missing was a red and black site that “overachieves the first step in [its] critical path of actioning future mission-critical reader deliverables”. I think you’ve just opened up the gates of Web 3.0. Congrats.

    Melanie Phung
    http://www.all-about-content.com/

    5th July 2007 @ 18:59

  • 6

    Looks decent to me Dave!

    Congrats for the new design.

    Manish Pandey
    http://www.manishpandey.com

    5th July 2007 @ 19:18

  • 7

    Well Dave I also found on your source that one of your CSS is not externally called.

    This one…

    /* Begin Contact Form CSS */
    {…

    …}

    Just link them to an external CSS file.

    Except that its all good! I mean cool! :)

    Manish Pandey
    http://www.manishpandey.com

    5th July 2007 @ 19:25

  • 8

    I love the new design. I like a darker look.

    Farmer

    5th July 2007 @ 20:47

  • 9

    The add to rss reader buttons are partly hidden by the comment form on FF/Ubuntu :O

    I thought it was moderately odd that the labels for these input fields are below the boxes but other than that I like it :)
    A

    Adam
    http://www.conversion-matters.co.uk

    5th July 2007 @ 21:08

  • 10

    Adam what screen res are you running out on

    DaveN

    5th July 2007 @ 22:05

  • 11

    Lovin’ it. Although I still think the post area needs a max-width :)

    Joost de Valk
    http://www.joostdevalk.nl/

    5th July 2007 @ 22:11

  • 12

    And why is there still no subscribe to comments plugin Dave? :)

    Joost de Valk
    http://www.joostdevalk.nl/

    5th July 2007 @ 22:11

  • 13

    Ow and you probably want to merge subsequent comments by the same person as well :)

    Joost de Valk
    http://www.joostdevalk.nl/

    5th July 2007 @ 22:14

  • 14

    To prevent 5 comments in a row by the same person, doing it just for the click throughs on your recent comments widget :P

    Joost de Valk
    http://www.joostdevalk.nl/

    5th July 2007 @ 22:14

  • 15

    And why’s the calendar still there? Pages like this:

    http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/2007/07/03

    will surely go supplemental and waste spider time :)

    Joost de Valk
    http://www.joostdevalk.nl/

    5th July 2007 @ 22:16

  • 16

    Hey Dave,

    Wicked Keemo
    http://www.makewickedmoney.com

    6th July 2007 @ 00:19

  • 17

    Joost has a point

    Wicked Keemo
    http://www.makewickedmoney.com

    6th July 2007 @ 00:20

  • 18

    You need to sort out

    Wicked Keemo
    http://www.makewickedmoney.com

    6th July 2007 @ 00:21

  • 19

    that recent comments issue

    Wicked Keemo
    http://www.makewickedmoney.com

    6th July 2007 @ 00:24

  • 20

    Haha :D

    Wicked Keemo
    http://www.makewickedmoney.com

    6th July 2007 @ 00:29

  • 21

    Also, where’d you get the 23 categories from? I only count 19 on the right. Maybe there’s a duplicate content issue there?
    On a more pedantic note, “I’m know in the Hands of the search engines…”. Umm don’t you mean “I’m NOW in the Hands of the search engines…” :P

    Wicked Keemo
    http://www.makewickedmoney.com

    6th July 2007 @ 00:42

  • 22

    Lose that default Digg It button.

    Since most of your posts don’t make it to Digg, having a Digg this button with a big fat ZERO looks like fucking ass.

    Instead, install the Digg This plugin : http://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/digg-this-wordpress-plugin/

    This way, the big Digg box will only be included at the top of your blog post if that specific post has been submitted to Digg and has received referrals from the Digg.com domain.

    Then you won’t have that damn fat ass 0 next to all of your posts.

    Loren
    http://www.searchenginejournal.com

    6th July 2007 @ 05:59

  • 23

    Really like it - although the first thing I noticed when I came wasn’t your content or navigation etc - it was the digg buttons all lined up with 0’s in them. Hope you don’t mind some honest feedback but I think it cheapens the look of the overall design and I wouldn’t go with them - or at least wouldn’t include them on the front page.

    Apart form that - very nice work.

    Darren Rowse

    6th July 2007 @ 06:28

  • 24

    Sorry Dave, but I don’t like it. Too dark (a sign of things to come?).

    Plus if you added a little yellow it would almost exactly the same color scheme as my old bedroom back in 1986 - apart from the gradient fill at the top ;)

    topper

    6th July 2007 @ 09:25

  • 25

    reminds me of a forum, will take some time getting used to the darkness lol

    Dudibob
    http://www.dudibob.com

    6th July 2007 @ 10:27

  • 26

    and you kept the slogan! yey

    Dudibob
    http://www.dudibob.com

    6th July 2007 @ 10:27

  • 27

    I think you will see a big improvement by getting rid of the archive. Although its still accessible via the calender as Joost points out.

    Also i think its better to clip the posts displayed in categories rather than listing a page of full posts

    Overall i like the design though.

    stu
    http://www.webmasterwords.com

    6th July 2007 @ 11:15

  • 28

    @ Darren and Loren.. Dam right, Digg buttons gone !!

    @ Joost . pffffffffft ;) Calendar Gone ! and 301’s in place

    @ Topper. Darkness is in my soul sorry :0

    keep up with the comments you are changing the touch and feel of the site and I thankyou

    DaveN

    DaveN

    6th July 2007 @ 12:10

  • 29

    Dave, one suggestion. A way to make your comments standout from all the others would be a nice touch. There’s a couple of WP plugins around that do that.

    Just my 2p

    Owen
    http://www.u-g-h.com

    6th July 2007 @ 14:19

  • 30

    like the .html extention on the post pages, how’d you do that?

    on a related note you probably show get the plugin that adds the trailing / to your category urls.

    and your slogan isn’t funny enough imo, doesn’t fit you. needs to be something like ‘I can’t stop ranking it’ or ‘I rank it with both hands’ :)

    pickled

    6th July 2007 @ 15:18

  • 31

    oh and you should space the post content away from the borders more, I’d make it match the comments

    pickled

    6th July 2007 @ 15:22

  • 32

    DARKNESS!!!

    Loren
    http://www.searchenginejournal.com

    6th July 2007 @ 15:50

  • 33

    Looks good. I like that its clean, uncluttered, and width 100% And who doesn’t love a dark website?

    Freelance Website Design
    http://www.alfredfox.com

    6th July 2007 @ 16:54

  • 34

    Looks great but you’ve got some gypsy in drag in your about box ;-)
    I like this a lot - it look different, yet remains very comfortable.

    You could consider changing the wordpress comments error page from default.

    Liam Delahunty
    http://www.liamdelahunty.com/

    6th July 2007 @ 17:20

  • 35

    @ pickled in the Customize Permalink Structure

    just add Custom structure: /%postname%.html then add a 301 to the old pages.

    DaveN

    DaveN

    6th July 2007 @ 17:36

  • 36

    Just noticed that the home page has a couple of superfluous entries in it.

    see: http://www.liamdelahunty.com/blog/media/dave-naylor-a-uk-seo_118373.gif

    Liam Delahunty
    http://www.liamdelahunty.com/

    6th July 2007 @ 17:51

  • 37

    @ liam couple of superfluous entries - lol They are two screen shots of the same adsense block showing good targeting and bad targeting depending on whether your on the home page or the post page, But the adsense bot has been and visited the site so i get crap ads on both now.. unless you need to know about bin laden ???

    DaveN

    DaveN

    6th July 2007 @ 19:00

  • 38

    Genie mac. Now I feel like a complete pr*ck! Next time, I’ll read first… Right then, when’s the next SEOdays? (Desperately trying to redeem myself)

    Liam Delahunty
    http://www.liamdelahunty.com/

    6th July 2007 @ 19:36

  • 39

    Dave,
    I would suggest using different color combination(s) for home about contact us and photo tabs and their associated states. What I mean is that, for example, if I am on your home page, home tab color is red and the rest are green - so far so good- but if I hover over any of the other three tabs it turns red, which is same color as active tab, hence there are two tabs with same color (which can be confusing for a moment, and I think that you are loosing intended color distinguishton ).

    tast

    7th July 2007 @ 07:21

  • 40

    Oh holy shit this looks almost like SEOmoz with the 3 columns stolen off SEOIdiot! :D

    IrishWonder
    http://www.irishwonder.syndk8.co.uk/2007/07/01/google-keyword-tool-external/

    8th July 2007 @ 20:21

  • 41

    I liked the other one better but then I don’t like green and grey… too institutional.

    AussieWebmaster
    http://www.smart-keywords.com/blog.html

    9th July 2007 @ 16:54

  • 42

    Wow - looks great! Only thing that didn’t sit right with me was the new slogan. I’m not saying it’s bad or anything - I just really liked the old one. Regardless though, very nice.

    Adam Moro
    http://www.adammoro.com/

    10th July 2007 @ 03:11

  • 43

    Adam Moro you know what I agree with you, on that .

    also added red for author posts,

    DaveN

    10th July 2007 @ 10:36

  • 44

    Overall I like the design, its modern and clean.

    But i think that the text can become a little difficult to read when stretched out. On my monitor, which is widescreen, there are too many characters per line. Also for me the font size or font, is a little too small.

    Julian.

    Julian Paling
    http://dfinitive.com/blog

    11th July 2007 @ 09:54

  • 45

    Not sure if this has been mentioned, but if you travel the web with the nonfollow links highlighted in pink. The blue font of the commenters links can’t be read behind the pink. Just a note of mine.

    JLH
    http://www.jlh-design.com

    11th July 2007 @ 17:39

  • 46

    JLH yer I know :)

    DaveN

    11th July 2007 @ 17:46

  • 47

    A quick amateur question if you don’t mind: how did you redirect all your old pages to new? Using a plugin or .htaccess?

    Thanks.

    James

    17th July 2007 @ 11:37

  • 48

    How about a previous / next at the bottom of the comments so I don’t need to ctrl + home or scroll back up to the top to read another post?

    Liam Delahunty
    http://www.liamdelahunty.com

    19th July 2007 @ 23:40

  • 49

    Nice redesign, No links to tools though even though “/tools” still exists? oh and tools/page_rank.php seems broken:(http://alanhart.co.uk/tempimg/DNPageRank.jpg)
    Not sure if you know about this?

    Alan Hart
    http://www.alanhart.co.uk

    24th July 2007 @ 09:49

  • 50

    Nice design keep up the top work

    http://www.hatchmedia.co.uk
    http://infohatchmedia.co.uk

    25th July 2007 @ 22:31

  • 51

    [...] talking about wordpress designs, I quite like Dave Naylor’s redesign [...]

    Wordpress redesign frenzy at Problogger

    13th August 2007 @ 08:36

  • 52

    Too bright, hurt my eyes.

    Also, you “forgot” to share that JS code, so just thought that in case you are writing, finish the article… 2c

    Web Browser
    http://www.favbrowser.com

    31st March 2008 @ 19:21

  • 53

    Is it me, but when enter the URL my FF browser crashes - WTF!!

    It works ok n IE, however there is a bug when it renders the page.

    besides that this is a completely new look, very good!!

    Osman Patel
    http://www.city-news.co.uk

    1st April 2008 @ 16:24

  • 54

    Um, what happened to the dark layout everyone is talking about?

    Vic

    Kettlebell Training
    http://www.kettlebelltraining.net

    1st April 2008 @ 23:35

  • 55

    My Firefox crashed 100% of the time too until I disabled all of my Firefox plugins, couldn’t be bothered to check which one ;) Try it Osman.

    Neil Yeomans
    http://www.lucidite.co.uk/

    2nd April 2008 @ 08:43

  • 56

    Im Digging the new look Dave very nice indeed!

    DavidT

    2nd April 2008 @ 09:29

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