The most annoying web site tactics

[draggar]

I've come across some sites that I just regret going to (some of these I need to go to on occasion).

Music playing. Yes, I normally have my own music playing and only one thing is more annoying than having some MIDI or very low bitrate song come blaring out of my speakers. What is that one thing? No ability to turn it off in the site. The only thing that might make it worse is if they decided to use a 320kbpS rate taking it 3 hours just to load the page.

New windows. I don't mind new windows for external links, that's for easy navigation but come on, some of these sites open a new window for EVERY PAGE IN THE SITE.

Pop-ins - those pesky ads that if you over anywhere within 1000 pixels of it it expands and covers up the entire webpage and you have to click CLOSE. But wait, after you clicked close you're back over the ad - OPEN AGAIN!!

Self pausing ads - ads that pause themselves when you go to another window or tab.

Too many animations. What, are we back to the late 1990's Geocities where everyone had to have 10,000 animated GIFs on their site?

"Click to enter our site". Why? I went to your site to see the site, why do I need to click an ENTER link just to see the site I want to go to? Just show the darn site!!

Surveys - many merchants and large sites (CNN) love having that little popup that follows you around. Would you like to complete a survey? I didn't want to the last 100 times it popped up, why would I want to now?

Feel free to share your own.

[silentg]

1. Fake virus scanners - Plays an animation of a software scanning your drives.

2. Scripts that doesn't let you close windows. Or annoying popup messages when you try to close the window.

I use Adblock Plus plug-in for Firefox to block all ads.

[Mark Talbot]

Parked Pages,... nuff said

[RobM]

'minisites' that contain lots of text related to what I'm looking for but no actual *information*. Usually interspersed with endless google ads and ads for ebooks made to match the font and color of the site for misleading clicking. But I guess that's ok they're 'developed' - much better than being presented with a page of links to companies that actually *do* provide what I'm looking for. 'nuff said.

[Jeroen]

'minisites' that contain lots of text related to what I'm looking for but no actual *information*.

Yes, that and superfluous wording often found in $5 articles.

Also, horizontal scrolling. Most screen resolutions in use are still 1024 * 768 px.

[draggar]

'minisites' that contain lots of text related to what I'm looking for but no actual *information*. Usually interspersed with endless google ads and ads for ebooks made to match the font and color of the site for misleading clicking. But I guess that's ok they're 'developed' - much better than being presented with a page of links to companies that actually *do* provide what I'm looking for. 'nuff said.

I'll go one further - sites that come up on the top of a Google search but when you click on it the page says "Sorry, we couldn't find a match for your query". How do they get to the top of a search result for terms that they don't use?

[Tia Wood]

Sites that ask "Are you sure you want to exit this site?" pop up alert box when you try to exit or leave.

Sites that leave their email on the contact page in plain text so I have to fire up my mail program, copy/paste just to contact them.

[katherine]

Sites that are full of scripting errors or not cross-browser compatible

[wussadotcom]

This is not the info that I want, how come these crappy content can rank so high,
Press close window
>> Are you sure you want to leave?
Click Yes
>> Just for you, we are offering a hot promotion, click Continue to Stay
Click No
>> Not enough, we also will give you free bonus, press Yes to Stay
Click No
>> But wait, this is a super free special offer, limited to the 100 no 50 users left, press No to Stay
Click No
>> Gotcha

LMAO ^^

[silentg]

New parking company launched recently uses some of these annoying tactics to make domainers money. TheParkingPlace.com

Here are some of the domains:
588.com
cdh.net

[DomainMagnate]

Loud annoying music that plays after you open the site and you can't easily turn it off is the worst! I can't believe there are still quite a few people that think it's a good idea to loop loud music on their sites.

[south]

Not a tactic, but it drives me nuts when people think adding heavy graphics to their site is a good thing. Just this week cj put this big flash thing on their home page to slow everything down...

[radioz]

Late to the party but the 'You're the 1,000,000 Visitor! You've won an iPad (or whatever)!' or the sultry/slutty woman who has a message waiting for you on an otherwise 'G rated' website.