home pages of companies

[Fan of Arabian horses]

Hi all, but particularly that persons who are engaged in internet providing!

Some month ago we had a topic about hotels in Eastern Germany who?s internet-sites (home pages) aren?t quite well or at least where confusing very much. Torsten referrred to some of them and asked for ideas how to improve them. Well I couldn?t believe that there are some sites in the technical area which are valid the same. My recent experience showed me that even providers of technical materials aren?t able to handle with the internet. Please forgive me if I don?t give any name (none of the companies asked for my opinion) but what experience do you have with home pages?

Regards

Michael

[Yankee]

Hi Michael

There is a lot of bad English on the Internet. In fact, that's why you need to be very careful if you use Google as a tool to check usage. An example I've mentioned here before is the phrasal verb "look forward to". This phrasal verb must be followed by a noun, a pronoun or a gerund (-ing form of a verb). So, 'look forward to seeing' is correct and 'look forward to see' is wrong. But, if you do a Google search for 'look forward to see', you will get about 200,000 results. People tend to believe that such a large number of results must mean that 'look forward to see' is correct usage. However, a lot of those results simply come from material written by people who don't speak or write English very well.

There are many companies that present their websites in their own native language as well as in English. Since the English on these sites is a translation, it will only be as good as the translator. Bad translations are usually the result of companies using the cheapest translator they can find. The quality of the translation suffers. If there are a lot of errors in the English text, the company runs the risk that potential customers might associate the quality of the company's products with the quality of its English -- i.e. the assumption may well be made that both are bad quality. If the English is so bad that it can't readily be understood, then there is no point in publishing the site in English at all.

There can also be problems with English even on websites from countries where English is the native language. If there is no proof-reading done, errors slip through and are presented on a worldwide stage, for all the world to see. One or two typos are normally overlooked by customers, but if a company's website text is full of typos, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, etc., the company again runs a high risk that its customers will associate this sloppiness and low quality with the products and services the company is trying to sell.
_________________
Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Fan of Arabian horses]

[Yankee]

Hi Michael

Oh, yes! I agree with you that the visual impact and organization of a website affects customers. I dislike websites that are not user-friendly. If I visit a website, there's usually a definite reason for my visit. There is usually some sort of specific information that I want to find. There is nothing worse than wasting your time looking for information that you can't find.

And if the website looks messy or unappealing or -- even worse -- just plain doesn't seem to work properly, that's a real turn-off. I also dislike being bombarded with advertisements.
_________________
Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Fan of Arabian horses]

Amy, as you mentioned advertisements at websites I?d like to tell you about a great folly of advertisement.

Now, you?ve had your residence in Germany for a some or many years, so you possibly remember the internet car market auto-scout 24. Well I need to buy a new used car in the near future. So I?m sometimes looking for information there. Always when I open the offering of a car immediately there is also a flyout of a journey provider. Well as I?m not interested in a journey I close that flyout but always can remember the offerer. Do they really think that I would ever book a journey at their?s after they offended and disturbed me?

My idea of them is that if they need to advertise that offensive their service is rather bad and they try to hide their missmanagement behind glossy curtains. And as much as I know I?m not the only one who think so. What do you think?

Michael

[Jamie (K)]

It's common for companies to use obnoxious, irritating advertisements, because ads like that are very effective at getting the name of the product into your head. Months later, people still remember the name of the product, but they may not remember the advertisement that irritated them so much. So horrible, annoying advertisements can increase sales a lot.