Site Review - March 23

Okay peeps, fire up your browsers and take a look at this site. The site owner has requested an evaluation. Please try to keep your comments constructive, and if you don't like the site, then take some time to explain why. What could this site owner do to make his site better, improve the surfer's experience, sell more memberships.


http://www.hotmalevideos.com/index.html


[We review one site a week. If you have a site that you'd like reviewed, please contact me by PM and I'll add you to the schedule.]

Cheers
Dzinerbear

I think it looks terrific. I just think it needs some more color to sex it up a bit. They gray on white is monochromatic to me and I need something to get my eye moving and get me going. Maybe a bright red or blue, imo.
Im on 800x600 res and it goes off the screen a little.

That mini video preview is a GREAT idea. Id make it larger though, i didnt see it at first.

Was this done in frontpage? Some things aren't quite right in Firefox, but most people use IE anyways.

Id just say "Nominated for best Foreign Release by GayVn Awards" and leave out the 2000. It makes the movie seem old and less exciting to me and turns me off to the site.
Never put dates into your page unless youre updating constantly.

A lot of the images look like they were stretched on the page and are blurry now, especially those bottom ones. Id resize the actual images and not stretch them through the html code.

great page overall

I see your using sureflix as a back end content plug-in. So I know your limited on what you can change. I will have to agree with the poster above. Change the color to something that "grabs" the attention of the surfer. You have a great domain name. So you sould not have many problems pulling in users. The frames are bit off in firefox. Your header cuts off a bit. Did not check it in IE but you might want to try it in different browsers and adjust the frame settings to match with all of them. Overall I think it looks pretty good.

I'm actually very flattered. I appreciate the feedback so far.

I have not considered Firefox users... until now. I checked it out and tweaked some of the easier to fix frames and table errors. There are a few more that will be fixed when I refresh the content, ('Hot Hunks' alignments and the contact page) but I think the more annoying ones are solved. If not let me know.

I think I went with silver/white because it was safe and I haven't personally seen too many others like it. Bold colors scare me. :) But I've never been afraid of experimenting. Are there particular colors that "sell" well for general sex content?

Thanks a lot!

I'm on my way to work, so just quickly. You'd do yourself a favour now to start checking all of your stuff in FireFox. FF is strict W3C compliant and interprets HMTL to the letter. So if your site works in FF, it'll work in IE. The reverse does not hold true oftentimes. And FireFox is gaining ground every month, and they're slated as the ones that'll take over from IE. I only fire up IE when I want to check my Google PR because IE's got the Googlebar installed.

About colour. When I see these colours I get all tingly and I want stuff to happen: http://www.gayhotmovies.com You can test me every time and the response will always be the same.

Dzinerbear

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

I only fire up IE when I want to check my Google PR because IE's got the Googlebar installed.
Dzinerbear

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Actually Firefox has an unauthorized Google toobar avaialable as an extension. There's a whole thread there about how Google's PR may be proprietary but...there's a second off-site extension that will put it in your Firefox Google toolbar.

That means that IE sits mostly unusued on my computer...the way it should be.

Just installed Thunderbird last night...buh-bye Outlook!

I actually like the monochromatic look, but I agree it needs some splashes of color. The colors (or lack of colors) make the site look different and draws my eye towards the hot box covers and screen captures.

There seems to be something wrong with the links on the site. When I click a link, sometimes it take 10 seconds before something happens. When that happens to me, it usually means that something has caused IE to freeze/crash so I get frustrated. I don't think it is your fault... more likely it is Maleflix that is causing the slowdown.

Imo, featuring Anthony Gallo on your main page is ALWAYS a good idea! I almost got my credit card out, lol. He is soooo hot! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

There seems to be something wrong with the links on the site. When I click a link, sometimes it take 10 seconds before something happens. When that happens to me, it usually means that something has caused IE to freeze/crash so I get frustrated. I don't think it is your fault... more likely it is Maleflix that is causing the slowdown.

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There's nothing wrong with his site ... welcome to world of Maleflix. It's almost always slow.
Dzinerbear

First of all... ::nuzzles Andy senselessly:: You can put me in the same category as xstr8guy in being a big fan. :twink:

With that out of the way, I've been trying to lessen the slowness as best I can by hosting as much of the content as possible myself. For example, I made my own "featured models" and I optimized the graphics and content space. Both of which they have the option to host. But ultimately I know it's unavoidable if I want them to get into the cinema. Today the store just seems to be down. sigh. But the color scheme continues inside, using the same chrome layout.

btw, Anthony Gallo was one of my first model choices too. lol.

Giving a new look can be something as simple as changing the logo fonts and its colors.

This is a quickie, but helps illustrate what changing those can translate into for effect

http://www.eroticbydesign.com/sample...mv_400x100.gif

Thanks Bec! That's pretty cool. The hamster wheels in my noggin are turning now for sure.

you're welcome to copy that banner and plug it in where that sized one goes just to see how it changes page overall - may help you to visualize where u want to go with the hamsters ...

another logo would be nice. want some choices? have a logo contest on gfy. i got lots of great designers when i had one.

i agree that the black-grey-white on the top is a little bland. i wouldn't go into drastic color changes - maybe a little color on the logo would make the difference.

i found the font on the most watched and highest rated videos to be very small in 1024x768. also in 1024, the grey around the page was pretty daunting. maybe a lightly textured background?

the enter page http://www.hotmalevideos.com/index.html doesn't fit in an 800x600 browser. about 40% of my surfers still use 800x600, so it's something to think about, i guess.

what i really like about the site is it is organized and easy to look at, and not enough sites out there are. i like the previews, i like the size and clarity of the preview pic of each scene - VERY nice. navigation is simple.

overall this is a nice site!

:blush: :kiss: Thanks Mike. Damn I wish I was going to Phoenix so I could meat, I mean "meet", you all!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dillmedia

Actually Firefox has an unauthorized Google toobar avaialable as an extension. There's a whole thread there about how Google's PR may be proprietary but...there's a second off-site extension that will put it in your Firefox Google toolbar.

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Not to hijack this thread for Google toolbar stuff, but Andy, does this Google toolbar for FF display page rank, too? (I just realized that Firefox and fisting fucking short-formed both come out to FF ... interesting.) Can you shoot me the link?

Thanks
Dzinerbear

Here are some of my thoughts on Hot Male Videos.

I definitely agree with the colour thread, but I agree with basschick, I wouldn't make any drastic changes. Universal Bear is monochromatic grey and it's very sexy, but I use a really nice blue line on it that I think just helps it pop. And I think you could achieve the same thing with your site.

About the speed issue, can you not contact Maleflix and talk to them about these issues? If you start bitching loud enough and if you start throwing around the odd Naked Sword or AEBN here and there, you may see some action. When I clicked on your "mini video preview" button, it took a full 30 seconds on high-speed to finally present with me the guts. That's unacceptable. Think of me as average joe surfer, I click something and I expect something to happen, when it doesn't happen in 5 seconds, I start to think the site is broken.

I find your left-side navigation bar unorganized. And I think the reason it looks messy is that you've centered everything. My eye is flying all over the place. Try left-aligning that whole section and you might want to add a bullet before solo, twinks ... it just helps them pop a little.

On these pages: http://www.hotmalevideos.com/dailygallery.htm
you may want to fill out that big grey "white spaces" with some writing about what's happening, or some banners, or something. It looks disjointed. I want it bordered and held together somehow, my eye is going from here to there to there.

On either side of the homepage, down at the bottom, you've got these two big columns of grey white space. WHACK!!!! Fill it with something, give them something else to look at. Make some long banners or something. To me it reads like this: all this stuff up here is important, and oh yeah, there's a bunch more stuff down there, but we didn't want to put much effort into it because you're probably not going down there anyway, are you?

(Sorry I'm feeling a bit whacked out today so I hope my sense of humour is coming through.)

Your title tag should come first. html, head, then title. It's position matters. And currently you have "Hot Male Videos -- Hardcore Gay Video-on-Demand -- Twinks, Muscle, Bears, and more!" I would change it to: "XXX Video on Demand - Hot Male Videos" or "Gay Video on Demand - Hot Male Videos."
When I searched for "video on demand" in my keyword tools, people weren't looking for "hardcore" they were looking for "xxx" so adding it will help you pick up some traffic. Moving "hot male videos" to the end is better. People tend to put the name of their site first, but the first three words are critical where Google is concerned and if you waste that real estate on your site name, albeit that your site name is a good keyword phrase, you're missing an opportunity.

I hope this helps.
Cheers
Dzinerbear

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

Not to hijack this thread for Google toolbar stuff, but Andy, does this Google toolbar for FF display page rank, too? (I just realized that Firefox and fisting fucking short-formed both come out to FF ... interesting.) Can you shoot me the link?

Thanks
Dzinerbear

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Here you go:

https://addons.update.mozilla.org/ex...Windows&id=193

Andy ... thanks ... I'm such a size-queen, I have my page rank back and I'm happy.

Cheers
Dzinerbear

You guys are the best. I appreciate the feedback. I may ask ya's to be my guinea pigs on some design choices once I work a few ideas out.

Andy, I won't be in Phoenix this time around either, but hopefully another time we can touch base. :kiss: :)