Hi everybody,

A special thank you to each of you who will take the time to review my site.

http://www.eslall.com

ESL All is a bilingual small search engine and directory for those who desire to learn or improve their English. We are currently building unique material that will be added in the months to come.

ESL All is a young site that has been online for less than six month.

Any comment or suggestion would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!!!

Christine

Hi Christine!

Welcome at WebProWorld. I am glad to have the honour to be the first responding to your first post.

My comments? You must try to clean up your markup (coding) with this brilliant free software: CSE Lite HTML Validator. You can check things too at: http://www.webnauts.net/check.html. Then make your javascripts external, while I see you are also concerned about SEO. Then check the following:

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Quick Tips found here...

* Images & animations: Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual.
* Image maps. Use the client-side map and text for hotspots.
* Multimedia. Provide captioning and transcripts of audio, and descriptions of video.
* Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read out of context. For example, avoid "click here."
* Page organization. Use headings, lists, and consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
* Graphs & charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute.
* Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case active features are inaccessible or unsupported.
* Frames. Use the noframes element and meaningful titles.
* Tables. Make line-by-line reading sensible. Summarize.
* Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG

(c) W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio) 2001/01
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You will not regret if you take my advice.
By the way, how do you like my new directory?

Ups! Most important: I suggested my site to your directory. I hope it fits somewhere...

__________________
"Being an expert isn't telling other people what you know. It's understanding what questions to ask, and flexibly applying your knowledge to the specific situation at hand. Being an expert means providing sensible, highly contextual direction." Jeff Atwood
SEO Workers - Search Engine Optimization Consulting Company | SEO Analysis Tool | Webnauts Net SEO

Whether your site would look good with bold text or not I do not know but I for do not care to go to a page that has all bold text. It makes it hard for me to read. If this is the case for others I do not know.

__________________
YourWeb The Friendliest Shopping Mall On The Net |
Buying First Time

I will say this...you've got one very interesting concept there.

I'm not sure what webhost1 is seeing as far as "everything being in bold" is concerned. There are some bold elements but certainly not enough to distract or become annoying.

However...you've got some very serious issues:

1. The primary language of the site is in English. This in itself wouldn't be a big deal EXCEPT that your target users are ESLers, and therefore speak a different mother tongue primarily. So...they may not even understand the concept of your site.
   
   I would get around this by having a series of flags, each with their country's own language, so that people can read the site in Dutch/German/Chinese/Japanese/Urdu/Swahili/whatever their mother tongue is.
2. Your logo looks very similar to Yahoo!'s logo. You're just inviting them to sue the pants off of you as it stands now.
3. http://www.eslall.com/learn_english_760.html . On this page (and many others), the ads push down the content as opposed to staying to the right of it. The content should come first, and then the ads after.

And of course, Webnauts' suggestions.

__________________
Toronto Web Design | Search Engine Friendly, Standards-Compliant Layouts | Walk on my Path (my blog)

contacts page is all bold

FAQ is all bold

suggest a site is all bold

copyright is all bold

about is all bold

__________________
YourWeb The Friendliest Shopping Mall On The Net |
Buying First Time

Thank you for your comment webhost1. You made your point about not liking bold type on my site. Fine. But please let's not turn such a minor issue into a public debate.

I will forward your comment to my webmaster and we will take it into consideration for future updates.

Any comments from you on other issues are welcome.

Thanks for taking the time to contribute.

Christine

Hey no problem ESL All. Was just summing things up for Adam is all.

__________________
YourWeb The Friendliest Shopping Mall On The Net |
Buying First Time

Yeah, that was my fault, not his.

__________________
Toronto Web Design | Search Engine Friendly, Standards-Compliant Layouts | Walk on my Path (my blog)

Thanks Adam. I will to take part of the blame.

__________________
YourWeb The Friendliest Shopping Mall On The Net |
Buying First Time

Come on, Adam. You have made some excellent comments about important things that will each be addressed:

1- The advantage of having a multilingual site. I do agree. Right now we only have French and English, but more to come.

2- Changing the logo. We'll give it a facelift.

3- The importance of balancing out content and ads on all pages. We are working on it, but you are 100 % right.

I do appreciate your expertise and am grateful for the time you took reviewing ESL All.

I have visited your site and was very impressed. You're a real pro.

So please, no more arguing about who's fault it is or not. People hold different opinions about different things and it is just as well, don't you think?

Thanks again and feel free to comment on any other aspects of ESL All you like and be assured that you opinion counts.

Thanks