AintItCool.com Shows How NOT to Launch a Website Redesign
If you’re a movie nerd like me, chances are you’ve visited Ain’t It Cool News on at least one occasion (or in my case, a few thousand occasions). It’s the leading source for entertainment news targeted at the “geek” crowd. It gets thousands of daily hits and has an Alexa Traffic Rank of 5,082.
In short, it’s a popular site.
And that’s why I was so surprised to see the site fail so miserably at launching a new design. Just this past week, AintItCool.com rolled out a new look for its website, and the results have been nothing short of disastrous.
Their homepage which displays news in a few different categories is all miscategorized and out of whack. The comments section is screwed up. There are all sorts of server issues. Content seems to disappear and reappear at random times.
To sum it up in internet geek terms: It’s a FAIL on every level. An EPIC FAIL, if you will.
So how could such a popular brand do such a terrible job at launching a new version of its site?
Apparently, they didn’t do a whole lot of testing before putting the new site up. In the site owner’s own words, it was a “hurried launch.” While I don’t know everything that’s going on behind the scenes at AintItCool.com, I can’t imagine why they’d hurry to launch their new website without taking the time to make sure it works the way it should.
Look, it’s understandable for there to be a few kinks here and there whenever you put up a new website. These things happen. But you can minimize the kinks by testing the site as much as possible before you put it live. And once it goes live and you notice the problems, you have to fix them as quickly as possible. You can’t expect visitors to idly sit by for days, waiting for it to be fixed.
There are lessons all of us can learn from AintItCool.com’s relaunch failures. It all boils down to paying attention to details, doing as much testing as possible, and correcting issues in a timely manner.
What tips would you offer to someone thinking about launching a website redesign?
December 9th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Great post! I've seen similar issues with companies I've worked with in the past: they are so hyped on getting something launched that they don't really think things through. It's like a friend told me once:
There are 3 things to consider when launching something new: 1) Time 2) Money 3) Quality
If any of those factors are looked past, all of them will suffer in the long run. Say you want to save money by using less labor or lower cost systems. It may take less time up front, but eventually you're going to waste even MORE time fixing the thing, which will cost you 10 TIMES MORE MONEY and the quality will suffer the whole time.
Thanks for the reminders!
July 12th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I think sometimes companies forget the reason why they have a website and like to get to fancy with it. They like to take every extra option and add it to their website because they think it will add value. It actually does the opposite. Sometimes less is more and your call to action needs to be the most important thing on your website. Ecommerce sites are notorious for over stuffing and forgetting that the purpose of their website is to buy not read a bunch of clutter. It is better to find a good internet marketing company or webdesign company to help you understand what good webdesign is.